Don't Die Before I Do
by Snapjinx
Summary: Post-"Sleepers". Nikola has adjusted to his new life. Helen hasn't. She'll do anything to keep another of the Five from leaving her. And, in the process, she will finally realize why Nikola in particular means so much. TIS FINITO! :D
1. Chapter One: Beauty and a Nightmare

**MAJOR SPOILERS FOR "SLEEPERS"!!!**

This is probably going to be a seven-eight chapter story if all goes according to plan. This first chapter is an introduction, so please read more if you are at all interested. The following chapters will be much more intense, however, but shouldn't lose any of the lightheartedness that comes along with Nikola Tesla. Also, I don't use a beta, so if anyone spots any grammar errors, plot incongruities, or really anything that needs to be fixed, don't hesitate to let me know. Also, FIRST EVER SANCTUARY FIC! HOORAY! XD Now, enough of my rambling.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Sanctuary or any of its residents. But if Tesla were mine, I don't think I'd ever leave my bedroom. :p

_P.S. The entirety of this story is dedicated to all of the other Tesla Troopers on GW. You know who you are. Thanks for welcoming me so warmly. ^-^_

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Chapter 1 - Beauty and a Nightmare

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For the first time in one hundred and thirty years, Nikola Tesla had passed out, dead drunk.

An amused, and very unaffected, Helen had carefully tugged the empty wineglass from his fingers and set it on the table next to the three empty bottles of vintage. Then, she easily maneuvered his lanky body so that it lay flat on the couch.

Now, sitting on the edge of the cushions, she couldn't seem to leave for her own bed. For hours now, she'd sat there beside him and just watched him breathe—surprisingly lightly for all the alcohol he'd consumed. Ever since that fateful day they'd all injected the Source blood, he'd never again had the need for sleep. And because he was thenceforth always alert and suddenly superhumanly aware of when others were watching him, Helen had never really observed him acutely.

The scientist in her swiftly noticed the slender, but strong build. The way the dark, expensive material of his tailored clothing fit his frame sharply at all times—even drunk-sleeping on a couch. She made note of the way his elegant neck looked when his head was twisted to one side in sleep. The way his scruffy hair always seemed to look styled, even when it was electrified or smashed into a sofa cushion. Her photographic memory pulled up images of his unmistakable blue-gray eyes, even though they were hidden behind his eyelids at the moment. Those eyes, always twinkling in mischievousness—except when the blue was washed away by a red so deep it was black.

_But not anymore_, Helen had to remind herself. _The pale blue will never again vanish in that shark-like hunger._

The final observation was of his mouth. Lips slightly parted, allowing breaths in and out. Behind them, teeth that would occasionally set themselves in a grin so stunning it could make her breath catch even when she didn't want it to.

Yes, the scientist in her observed all of these things and filed the details away. But it was the woman in Helen Magnus that found every single barest detail so ridiculously attractive.

Glad that the genius was in an alcoholic coma, she reached out and brushed her fingertips against his cheek. For the first time in one hundred and thirty years, his skin was warm to her touch. Smiling faintly to herself, Helen slid the fairy touch down and to the left a few inches to touch his lips. They were surprisingly soft. She found herself wishing she hadn't broken off their impromptu kiss in the foyer all those months ago. His mouth twitched in response to her touch, but he didn't stir. Helen drew her hand back and put it in her lap, resolving to get up and go get some sleep, though the sun was already creeping up toward the horizon's edge.

But something—something that the scientist in her cursed foully—kept her firmly on the couch's edge. That same something drew her hand up from her lap and rested it on the messy hair. Biting her lip to keep from giggling, Helen ran her fingers through the spiky strands, messing it up even further. All at once, her cursed precise memory pulled up the closest thing to the moment it could muster.

**

"_Nikola!" Helen blinked. "You look so…different."_

_The brand-new vampire strode into the Magnus home with his usual arrogant smirk sprawled across his mouth. Since the injecting of the Source blood only two days ago, they had all changed drastically. Nikola's transformation was the most dramatic. Gone were the tweed suit, perfectly oiled hair, and moustache. Now, he swaggered through her door with all black, perfectly-tailored clothes, face clean-shaven, and hair a mess that would have gotten him thrown out of several high-standing dinner parties._

"_The hair is…interesting," James Watson said, lips twitching in an effort not to smile. "Did you get electrocuted?" _

"_Funny story, actually…" Nikola began. _

_But just then, Helen reached out without warning and ruffled his hair. Nikola jumped, startled at the very unladylike move, but his shock almost instantly turned to a pleased smirk. _

"_It was begging me to," Helen said with a shrug, laughing._

"_Fantastic. Just another thing to drag all the attention to you."_

_Nikola looked around sharply at the disembodied voice. His senses were such that he could easily sense exactly where his now-invisible friend stood. With a crooked grin, Nikola slapped the air, his hand landing squarely on Nigel's back in a friendly blow._

"_Good to see you, Griffin. Or rather…not. Well, you know what I mean. Anyway! The hair. It might look odd in today's society, but I have a feeling it'll catch on. After all, Helen and I have got to look ahead in areas like fashion, hm?" _

_He smiled devilishly. _

"_And me as well," James piped up. "I'm working on a suit that could conceivably keep me alive just as long as you, Tesla."_

_Nikola pouted. "Damn. And here I thought I was going to have the lovely Miss Magnus all to myself for eternity."_

_The smile he shot her way made her stomach do flips. _

"_Well then!" Nikola clapped his hands together once and rubbed them briefly. "About that electrocution story, I'm looking forward to telling it at tonight's meeting. I went to crash Edison's blasted patent party for _my _work on an electric chair and made an intriguing discovery about my own physiology—which, funnily enough, brings me back to the hair…"_

_Abruptly he stopped speaking and glanced round. "Where's Druitt?"_

**

Helen gasped as she forcibly pulled herself out of the memory. She couldn't let her mind go where the memory of that particular night led. She wasn't ready for that. She was happy now and for once in her life, she damned well was going to _stay _happy for as long as possible.

Standing, she pulled a blanket from a nearby chair and draped it over the body of her friend. A body that was once again susceptible to cold temperatures and sickness. Smiling sadly, she left the room, suddenly struck by the reality that Nikola Tesla was mortal. In fact, he was dying with every breath he took. Even as he lay on her couch, breathing soft, wine-tinted breaths, he was slowly ticking away toward the end of a normal lifespan.

The bitterly sad thought only intensified as she prepared herself for bed and by the time she lay down, she found herself sobbing into her pillow in order to muffle the sounds.

_Dying. No. Not Nikola. Not him. He's supposed to be there forever, living eternity in the big wide world with me. _

_Nikola…_

Eventually, the violent sobs sapped the last of her strength and her immortal body succumbed to sleep.

She woke only an hour later, completely drenched in sweat and screaming so loudly that she woke everyone in the old house—even the comatose Nikola.

TBC


	2. Chapter Two: Magnetic

This one's got blood in it. In generous amounts.

**Disclaimer: **Martin Wood, Damian Kindler, and Amanda Tapping own Sanctuary. I'm still working on getting them to loan me Tesla...

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**Chapter 2 – Magnetic**

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Within days, Nikola had managed to gain complete control of his new power over magnetic fields. But the road to that point had led to some rather fantastic demonstrations. Helen walked into the Great Hall one day to see every single suit of armor spinning through the air in a wild dance. And in the center of the whirlwind of metal, relatively small by comparison, stood Nikola Tesla—arms spread wide and a grin on his face, eyes closed.

Not wanting to break his concentration and cause a possibly deadly accident, Helen simply waited patiently in the doorway. Eventually, she was joined by Kate, Will, and Henry. They all watched silently as Nikola finished his fun and reassembled each suit of armor back in its place.

Only then did he lower his arms and open his eyes, immediately leveling that blue-gray gaze directly at Helen as if he'd known she was watching the whole time.

"Impressive, no?" he murmured.

Helen smiled. She'd always loved his voice. He had a way of articulating each word and yet the words all flowed together in one rich, smooth sound.

"Very," she admitted.

"Pretty sweet, Dr. T," Kate said with a grin.

"I guess," Henry muttered.

"Don't get too excited," Nikola sniped. "I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself."

Henry rolled his eyes. "I'm gonna get back to work."

"Ah, ah, Tiny Tim." Nikola held up a hand. "I think you'll want to see this. Kate, dear, do you have a weapon on you?"

Kate snorted. "When don't I?" She pulled out her pistol and cocked it, smiling deviously.

"Splendid. I don't suppose you'd mind shooting me?"

Helen experienced an unwelcome forced flashback. Flashes of scenes from all of her nightmares over the past three nights sped through her mind's eye.

_Blood. Sprayed everywhere. His skin going cold once more under her desperate hands. Eyes vacant. Bones splintered, tendons cut, blood trickling from his lips, no longer smirking. Her scream of grief. Tears landing on his blood-streaked face._

"Nikola, I don't think—" she started to speak up.

"Trust me, Helen," Nikola crooned. "Genius, remember?"

Even at his reassuring confidence, Helen still had to use every ounce of her mental strength to keep a panic attack at bay as Kate braced both hands on her pistol. The mercenary's dark features were tense with worry as she swallowed hard. Henry had all the morbid fascination of a little boy watching a dog on a shock collar run toward the invisible electric barrier. Will, however—astute psychiatrist that he was—had noticed Helen's abnormal tension and was regarding her worriedly.

"Ready?" Kate said. And for once her voice held no snark or tease.

One slender finger lifted. "Wait just a moment."

To Helen's further consternation, Nikola turned his back on Kate, facing the opposite direction. She only just held back a scream for him to stop.

_Screaming. His scream. He begged for the pain to stop. Blood sprayed. Coughed out of his mouth, dribbling down his neck. His eyes so pained, so horribly agonized. He screamed her name. He was begging her to make it stop. Sobbing her name._

"You may fire when ready, Miss Freelander," Nikola called. "Everything you've got, if you don't mind."

Kate took one shaky breath, held it, and emptied the clip.

Helen had to close her eyes in order to keep her breathing in check. Unfortunately, that only made it easier for the devilish nightmares to invade her memory.

_He reached up a hand, elegant fingers clawing weakly at her jacket. Blood streaked his arm. Blood lined everything. She tried to catch his shaking hand in her own, but at that moment, his arm fell limply to the ground near his face, splashing more blood onto his cheek. His eyes stared across the floor, across the serene pool of blood he lay in. He was gone._

"That's incredible," Henry breathed, his awe overriding his animosity.

Helen opened her eyes and nearly cried in relieved joy. Nikola had turned to face them once again and eleven bullets were suspended perfectly in front of him. The genius poked the tips of each of the bullets and drew invisible straight lines from their current positions toward his body. Each of the hypothetical end points touched his stomach or his arms or legs, or missed completely.

"All non-vital," he observed, looking up again. His lips tweaked into that smirk. "I appreciate the sentiment, Kate, darling, but your lack of confidence in my abilities is insulting."

Without a pause, Kate squeezed off the last shot in the clip. The bullet stopped inches from Nikola's face and his eyes were sufficiently wide at the shock of the attack. But then his smile was back.

"Very good," he murmured. "A girl after my own heart."

"Jesus, I think I almost had a heart attack!" Henry gasped, a hand pressed to his chest. "I am _definitely_ going back to work now."

Kate hurried over to Nikola, ignoring the werewolf. "Dr. T, that was amazing!"

Nikola allowed the twelve bullets to drop out of the air, then. He was an observant sort, though, and didn't miss the way that Henry didn't go back to work, but instead watched Kate's adoration with a decided jealous look.

"Well, you weren't so bad yourself, my dear," Nikola replied to the mercenary.

Henry growled something and spun on his heel, finally leaving. Kate didn't notice.

"Who knows," she teased, nudging the magnetic genius. "Maybe one day you can do some field work, huh?"

Nikola leaned close, but focused his gaze over Kate's shoulder, capturing Helen's gaze. "That's up to Mommy."

"Magnus, can I talk to you?" Will said abruptly.

Helen snapped her gaze away from Nikola's and to her protégé's. "Of course. My office?"

They left a chuckling Nikola and a curious Kate in the Great Hall and walked to her office in silence. Once the door was shut, Will sat down on the sitting area couch. The one that Nikola had passed out on three nights earlier. Helen shielded the memory easily from Will's observant gaze and sat in an armchair across from the young Sherlock.

The thought made her smile. She saw so much of her old friend James in Will that some days it hurt her heart to even speak with him. It was just her, Nikola, and John now. She couldn't lose either one of them. Despite their respective issues—Nikola's obsession with power and John's unstable mind—they were her closest friends. Even closer than family. At one point they had _been _her family.

"You're having nightmares, aren't you?" Will broached the subject with unusual bluntness for him. "I mean, besides that first one."

Helen blinked and started to laugh it off, but Will's eyes were piercing.

"Don't lie to me, Magnus. I'm here for your mental well-being, remember?"

Helen took a deep breath and let it out. "They're getting worse each night."

Will sat forward a bit on the couch. "Magnus, this isn't healthy. You need to talk to someone. We all almost died when we heard you scream that first night. By the time we all got up there and saw you curled up on the floor, sobbing…I don't think I've ever been that scared in my whole life. And when you just said it was nothing…. Now, I realize I have no place asking this, but I'm worried. And smothering screams into a pillow doesn't count as coping."

And so, seeing his logic, Helen opened up in the way she only ever had to the Five and her father. Maybe it was time to expand her horizons in the area of friends. Or at the very least, her circle of trust could more securely envelop her loyal protégé. After all, when your trust was loosely imbedded in a nearly-mad genius and Jack the Ripper, it could be a sign to find additional, more sane friends.

She told Will about every single dream—because she remembered each unique one. She told him how each dream was a new, horrific way for her to watch Nikola die. She related the details of each of the violent scenes. She explained how, no matter how many Eastern Methods she tried and how many dream-walking drugs she took, she could not wake from the nightmares until the last of the light left Nikola's eyes.

After she explained it all without crying once, Will mused for a moment in his quiet way. Then he looked up at her.

"What's the prognosis, doctor?" Helen asked, smiling faintly.

Will sighed. "The simple answer is that you're terrified to lose another one of the Five. That bond is deeper than any normal human friendship and every time one of the ties broke, it left a deep scar on your psyche. The simple answer is that your fear of Tesla's new mortality is tormenting you and your subconscious is trying to force you to find a solution to end your misery…"

"But…?" Helen pressed.

"But I think it's slightly more complicated than that," Will muttered, almost to himself. "I guess I can't make an accurate diagnosis yet. For now, I'd like to see if talking about this has released any of that pain. If you dream again, we'll have to look into some sleeping pills so you can get a decent night's sleep."

"I've already thought of that," Helen said, waving her hand. "They don't work. But I don't need much sleep, anyway."

Will frowned. "I know you don't. But that's not the point. This much terror on a human mind—even one as powerful as yours—just isn't healthy."

Helen smiled. "Thank you, Will. Truly. You're a great friend."

Will smiled faintly, but his eyes were still disengaged, frowning in deep thought. Helen knew he would wrestle with this problem until he had a solution.

Just then the door shook with a booming knock. Both Helen and Will jumped.

"Enter," Helen called.

Bigfoot did just that and his tenseness immediately put the two on edge.

"What's wrong?" Helen said, standing.

"Nothing life-threatening," the Big Guy said quickly, fully aware what her mind would jump to. "It is…Dr. Tesla."

Will stood and put a reassuring hand on Helen's arm, knowing from their very recent conversation that she could very well have a panic attack.

"What's happened?" Helen's voice was weak.

Bigfoot looked a bit confused at her rare tone. "As I said, nothing life-threatening," he rumbled. "Dr. Tesla has…insisted on…making dinner."

For a moment, Will and Helen just stared. Then Will's eyebrows climbed. "I'm sorry?"

"Apparently, he is thrilled to once again enjoy a variety of foods," Bigfoot said. "He has locked me out of the kitchen and refuses to negotiate. All he says is that dinner will be served at eight. Dr. Magnus…I am unused to sitting idly."

Helen sighed partially in relief and partially in a laugh. She sat back down and gestured to the other armchair. "Well, we'll help you through it."

Will sat back down on the couch with a chuckle as Bigfoot ambled across the room, grumbling to himself.

"This should be interesting," the young protégé muttered.

TBC


	3. Chapter Three: Dinner and a Show

**Disclaimer**: Sanctuary is not mine. I'm just borrowing Tesla for my own little fantasies.

**A/N.** This is turning out to be more violent than I originally planned. Cursed plotbunnies. The story is inexorably changing from the original plan, so I don't really know how it's going to end now. Also, a bit of a Henry/Kate thing has suddenly emerged as a subplot. I don't mind if you don't. :D Not to worry. It still is--and always will be--all about Niko. ^_^

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**Chapter 3 – Dinner and a Show**

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Dinner was, in fact, ready promptly at eight. Helen, Will, Henry, and Kate stood behind an anxious Bigfoot outside the closed door to the barely-used main dining hall. As the sanctuary bells finished the eighth chime, the double doors flung open with a flourish to reveal a grinning Nikola Tesla. He was dressed in a dark gray shirt with his tailored black vest over it and black slacks.

"Welcome, ladies, gentlemen, and freaks of all breeds," he said dramatically, bowing deeply.

"Still dressing like a vampire, Tesla?" Will said, only half-teasing, as they entered.

Nikola scoffed. "_Please_. I invented this look long before Bram Stoker wrote that god-awful piece of literature."

By then, they'd all entered and no one had anything more to say about Nikola's wardrobe choices. Candles, hundreds of them, covered the room and a dozen sat on the table in silver settings. Blood red roses littered the white tablecloth around the silver candelabras and the sanctuary's best, blue-printed china set the table with OCD-like particularity.

The food was already steaming on the table and looked delicious.

"How did you make all this so quickly?" Kate asked in wonder.

Nikola shrugged modestly. "It's an old hobby. I'm quite good, if I do say so myself."

"And you do," Henry muttered.

"I'm more interested in how you got the china out of a locked cabinet," Helen said suspiciously.

Nikola paused midway through pulling a chair out for her and gave that innocent look he had perfected over the years. "Well, I didn't want to bother you for the key and besides, what is a lock but a series of metal tumblers." He grinned. "It only took me thirty seconds to figure out how to spin them all just right without being able to see them."

Rolling her eyes, but unable to hold back a smile, Helen sat in the chair, still looking around in wonder. She picked up one of the velvet blossoms from the table.

"And the roses?"

"I may have borrowed them from the garden," Nikola admitted, fidgeting his fingers in front of him.

"Borrowed?"

"Alright, I took them," he said in exasperation. "But if it means that much to you, just give me two days of uninterrupted lab time and I'm positive I can find a way to reattach every single precious stem with minimal abnormally violent mutations and no ill-effects to the beauty of the flower."

"Two whole days?" Henry said, digging at the genius's ego slightly.

Nikola leveled a no-nonsense glare. "Botany isn't exactly my field of expertise, so yes. Now. What are we missing…" He snapped his fingers. "Ah! Wine, of course!"

With a wink at Helen, he disappeared from the room and a comfortable silence settled on the rest of the group as they took everything in. Helen was seated at the head of the table; the other end was vacant for Nikola's return. To her right sat a very agitated Bigfoot, who looked around at all the exquisite dishes with a cross between admiration and jealousy. Will sat next to him. Henry sat to Helen's left and Kate was next to him, staring down at her T-shirt and jeans.

"I feel underdressed," Kate whispered to Henry in the silence.

"You look great," Henry whispered back.

Kate blinked at him in suitable surprise and Henry cleared his throat awkwardly, looking down at his plate and hoping that the dim, antique lighting of the room didn't show his blush. Helen smothered a smile. These were the moments she lived for. These warm, happy snatches of life that made all the pain and nightmare of longevity fade away to a memory.

"And voila!" Nikola reentered clutching four bottles in his arms. "I found a 1910, a '32, and two '46s. Nice years, hm, Helen?"

"You know," Will said, worriedly. "You should really be careful, Tesla. Judging from your habits, you could very easily become an alcoholic now that you're—"

Nikola's vicious glare stopped Will just short of uttering the deadly 'm' word.

"They're not _all _for me, Huggy Bear," he said, releasing the torturous name with hardly a twitch. "I plan on sharing."

"Huggy Bear?" Kate muttered in confusion to no one in particular.

"So!" Nikola dropped the bottles on the table and scooped one up gracefully, brandishing a corkscrew and his devilish grin. "Shall we begin the festivities?"

*

After the meal, Nikola sat back in his chair, cradling a wineglass in one hand, and observed all of their reactions with a little, self-satisfied smile.

"Well?" he pressed.

"That was the most fantastic meal I've ever eaten," Henry said around a mouthful of pasta. "And I'm still eating it!"

"Excellent," Will said, simply. "Absolutely delicious."

"It seems I must surrender one of my duties to one more talented than I," Bigfoot acquiesced with a slight bow of his head.

"I had no idea you could cook, Nikola," Helen said, dabbing her mouth with a napkin.

Nikola's smirk turned into a grin as he set down the wineglass and leaned his elbows on the table. "You don't know everything about me, Helen."

Helen found to her sort-of intrigued panic that she couldn't look away from his pale blue eyes. The seconds dragged on in silence and she was very much aware that the rest of the group was watching the moment awkwardly, but she still couldn't break her gaze.

"So, what's the occasion anyway?" Kate piped up.

Thankfully, Nikola's clear eyes turned to the young woman. "You mean you don't know?" He glanced around at all the others and frowned, clearly shocked. "_None _of you know?"

"Nikola, they probably just forgot," Helen soothed. "We've had a lot to deal with lately after all."

Nikola smiled and locked his eyes on Helen once again as he drank slowly from his glass. "_I _didn't forget. I haven't forgotten a single one yet. Not a single year."

Henry abruptly remembered, nearly choking on the last of his roast chicken. "Oh my god, your _birthday_!"

"It's your birthday?" Will exclaimed.

"Happy birthday!" Kate cried, lifting her glass.

Helen sighed and shook her head at the grinning Nikola. "_Now _look what you've done."

"You deserve spoiling," he replied with a shrug, drinking again. "You'll work yourself to death if you don't learn to…relax."

He uttered the last word with a sultry smirk that caused a quick chill to dance across the skin of her back.

Will cleared his throat and stood up, holding his glass. "How about a toast?"

"Refill first," Nikola said, pouring more into his glass. Then he leaned back. "Alright, protégé. Give it your best shot."

Will took a breath. "Right. Well." He faced Helen. "Magnus." A small smile. "You once told me that 'life without end is not a gift—it's a curse,' but I for one am thankful for every minute of your life. If I had never met you…well, you changed my life in the most fantastic way I can think of. You've changed each of our lives for the better and I'd just like to thank you on behalf of all of us. Here's to many more years to come."

Nikola raised his eyebrows in surprised appreciation. "I'll drink to that."

They'd all barely touched the wineglasses to their lips when the unthinkable happened.

John Druitt flashed into existence behind Helen's chair.

"Holy shit!" Henry yelped.

Before anyone could react, John had hauled Helen to her feet with an arm around her neck, knocking the elegant chair over with a clatter. Several other chairs smashed to the floor, as well, as their occupants leaped to their feet. Kate had her pistol out almost before she was fully standing. Nikola's wineglass had shattered on the wood floor and he stood perfectly still, sharp eyes taking in everything, his powerful mind racing furiously. Bigfoot was growling in a very intimidating way.

But Druitt simply smiled that mad, calm smile and pressed his long, walking-stick dagger against Helen's throat.

"Whoa, easy, easy…" Will soothed, using the best weapon in his arsenal—his voice.

"Hello again, everyone," Jack the Ripper murmured in his frighteningly low voice.

"Come on, Druitt, what're you doing," Will went on talking. "We're all friends here, right?"

"Don't bother," Nikola spoke up. "The man's hardly rational at the moment."

"Hello, Nikola," John said, and he truly did look insane. "Unfortunately your electroshock therapy isn't permanent. I've come to my senses."

"No, you've _lost _your senses again, John," Helen spoke up. She gasped sharply as the dagger pressed harder into her neck, breaking the skin. "What are you doing here?!"

"Let her go, Johnny," Nikola said.

Helen was surprised that the slender scientist had his own threatening edge to his voice.

"Why?" John challenged, cocking his head like a lunatic, eyes wide and spaced-out.

"You slice up whores, Jack," Nikola said. "Helen's not your type."

John looked like he was thinking hard about that. Then he spoke again. "No, you're right. But she is _your _type. And I'm here to cause you great pain, Nikola. Once the effects wore off, I realized that your little electrical solution to make me sane has kept me from my noble work." He grinned. "And now you're mortal, which makes my goal not only plausible, but thoroughly more enjoyable."

Nikola's jaw tightened. "I could always shock you into sanity again."

John laughed. "I know for a fact your powers over electricity left with your vampirism, Nikola. Please. Empty threats are beneath you."

Nikola's lips slowly stretched into a deadly smile. "See, John, this is why you never fit in with the Five. The rest of us were scientists—real genius. And you? You were just a thinker—a philosophy major. It's only because Helen took pity on you that you were even included."

"Do you _want _her to die, Nikola?" John hissed, tightening his hold even more on Helen. Blood now trickled from the dagger edge's contact point on the side of her neck. "I would _love_ to make you suffer as much as possible before I kill you."

"If you _were _a scientist," Nikola went on rambling, "you would know that magnetism and electricity are two sides of the same coin. Electromagnetic energy is actually more powerful than mere electricity."

As his voice gained strength, the lights flickered noticeably.

"And if you were _truly_ intelligent," Nikola went on, taking a step forward, "you would know that magnetic fields can do much more than make metal dance. When properly controlled and directed, they can do things like this."

He lifted his hand and simply snapped his fingers.

For one heartbeat, nothing happened.

Then, every light fixture in the room shattered simultaneously. The subsequent darkness was immediately rent by crackling electricity, striking John Druitt's skull with terrific ferocity. He instantly released Helen and she fell to the floor. John collapsed only a few feet away from her, thrashing like a man possessed. Nikola's face was blank in intense concentration as he stared levelly at the shrieking killer, keeping the pulses coursing through Druitt's body.

Helen lay on her side where John had dropped her and tore her eyes from the gruesome sight of him being tortured so close by. She looked up at Nikola. He stood perfectly still, hardly exerting any energy. Gone was the happy grin and dishonestly modest master chef. The cold look on his face made it seem like he had never lost his vampiric qualities at all. The bluish electricity reflected in his eyes, making them shine. John kept on screaming.

"_Nikola_!" Helen yelled over the crackling air. "Nikola, you have to stop! You're going to kill him!"

Nikola's eyes slid to the side, focusing on her. Without a change in his expression, the electricity suddenly stopped. The room faded to dimness, lit only by the candles on the table. Everyone in the room was panting hard—except for Nikola. Slowly, his blank expression cracked, allowing his usual smirk onto his face.

Helen once more locked gazes with him, but quickly broke off to crawl over to John's smoking body. The smell of burnt leather made her wrinkle her nose, but she pushed through it and pressed her fingers to the Ripper's neck.

"He's alive," she said, looking up. "Get him to the infirmary."

Nikola watched, rooted to the spot, as Henry and Bigfoot heaved John's tall, broad body off the floor, hurrying him out. Will and Kate ran ahead of them in order to prep the infirmary. Helen stood up wearily and was surprised to find Nikola at her elbow, helping her up.

"I'm fine," she snapped. But when she tried to shove away his hand, she nearly fell over.

"You're bleeding badly," Nikola countered.

With a deft snap, he pulled a linen napkin from the table and pressed it gently to her neck. Helen winced. Adrenaline had kept her from noticing that she'd been cut. Now, she felt the pain. She also felt his strong fingers cupping the back of her head in order to keep her from wiggling away from his other hand, which kept pressure on the napkin at her neck. He was standing less than a foot away from her. His brow was furrowed in concentration and his eyes were focused on tending to her wound, but she studied his face unashamedly.

After a few breaths, Nikola peeked under the cloth and shook his head. "You'll need stitches."

Helen barely registered his words. She felt woozy and didn't think it was entirely from blood loss. They hadn't been this close together since the closet/prison in the vampire kids' apartment a week ago. He smelled like wine and spices and his fingers were warm against her skin and curled against her skull in a gentle way that made her head buzz.

She was soon grinning like a loon. "Garlic," she mumbled.

"What?" Nikola frowned.

"You cooked with garlic tonight," she slurred. "S'just ironic. Kinda…funny…"

Then her eyes rolled back and she passed out. Nikola caught her before she hit the floor and, for a moment, just held her there. If anyone were to enter, it would look as if the two had been dancing and ended in a dip. His face was inches from her own; her head was titled back over his arm, lips parted and eyes closed. For several breaths, he was lost in the moment. Then he remembered her steadily bleeding neck.

"Damn," he muttered to himself.

Sandwiching the cloth between his shoulder and Helen's neck in order to keep pressure on the cut, he slid his other arm behind her knees and stood, lifting her cleanly off the ground with a grunt.

Carrying her as carefully as if she were a delicate doll, he glided to the infirmary, never jostling her.

TBC


	4. Chapter Four: The Cure to Night Terror

**First of all****:** Thank you all SO MUCH for your lovely reviews! Whenever I'm feeling down or enduring writer's block, I just skim through them all again. You're all awesome! ^_^

**A/N.** This chapter ALONE is rated M for the beginning nightmare being so violent. If that bothers you, please just skip over the italics and read the rest.

Once you get past the beginning, this is actually the fluffiest chapter yet. Funny how that works…

**Disclaimer:** Don't own anything but my imagination. And this story.

* * *

**Chapter 4 – The Cure to Night Terror**

_

* * *

Nikola screamed. His head thrown back, veins bulging in his slender neck, he screamed hoarse and thick, as if his heart was being cut out of his chest._

_And actually, it was._

_The ex-vampire was chained to a medical table. Hovering over him were John and Ashley. Both of their eyes were bloody-red and both had Ripper smiles on their faces. John was gleefully punching his fist through different parts of their victim's torso. Two bloody holes already marked the smooth skin—one on Nikola's stomach, the other higher up on his ribs. Ashley stood at the head of the gurney and was working her hardest to shred Nikola's heart out of his chest using only her vampire claws. _

_Nikola's back arched as he screamed; he pulled against the chains. Tears streamed from the corners of his eyes just as quickly as the blood flowing from the corner of his mouth. He coughed and immediately choked on the blood coming up from his punctured lung. _

_Then his head rolled to the side and he saw her. _

"_Helen…" he rasped. "Helen, help me! _Please_, Helen—"_

_Then Ashley plunged her clawed hand deep in one final thrust. Nikola curled up, in so much pain he was unable to scream. Helen screamed in her mind, because in the dream she could do nothing but stand. She could not move, cry out, or do anything to save her friend. She did not even blink. _

_Nikola sprawled out once more when Ashley ripped her hand back out, holding the shredded remains of his heart. The demonic version of a once-innocent girl hissed in delight. John laughed loudly and clapped his blood-soaked hands as if he were at the opera._

_Nikola stared in horror at his heart, held less than a foot above his face in Ashley's bloody fist. By the time the first drop of blood fell from it and struck his cheek, he was already dead—still staring wide-eyed, terrified, and agonized in the direction of Helen's helpless, silent dream-self._

"NOOOO!"

Helen didn't recognize the howl as her own voice at first. She sat bolt upright, and when she realized she was on a gurney, the panic grew even worse. It took both Kate and Henry to pin her until she stopped. It felt so good to actually scream after the invisible gag of her nightmare. She loved the feeling of her lungs burning and her throat tightening. In fact, she felt as though she would continue to scream for the rest of her life after what she'd just seen.

"Calm down, doc, you're gonna rip your stitches!" Kate yelled.

Panting, Helen finally settled and looked around her. She was slicked with sweat and every single muscle in her body was shaking uncontrollably. She was in the infirmary. Why again? A slight stinging in her neck made her aware of the recently and neatly stitched gash.

_Ah, yes_, she remembered. _John_.

She jerked stiff again. "Where's Nikola!"

"Easy, easy," Henry soothed, patting her arm. "Everyone's fine. Even Druitt."

"Where?"

"In one of the isolation rooms," Henry explained.

"Jack the Ripper woke up a few minutes ago and almost jumped away," Kate continued.

"But we have the EM shield up," Helen said, horrified. "He would be ripped to pieces!"

"Yeah, we told him that," Henry said, wincing. "If Dr. T hadn't zapped him into Unconscious Land again, Druitt would be a collection of dusty DNA." The werewolf hesitated before going on. "Magnus…I hope you don't mind, but Tesla went ahead and started round two of the electroshock therapy. He insisted that an insane Druitt was too dangerous to keep around. He said you'd understand."

Helen nodded. "I do understand. He was right to start without my say-so. Which room are they in?" She swung her legs off the gurney.

"Uh, do you really think you should be standing?" Kate asked worriedly, hurrying around to the other side of the bed.

Helen smiled kindly. "It's just a cut. Which room, Henry?"

"Iso-3."

Helen nodded at them both, stood up without a problem, and exited. Kate sat down on the now-empty gurney with a thoughtful frown. Henry circled around and sat next to her.

"After all this time and everything he's done," Kate said, shaking her head. "Even after he tried to _kill_ her…I can't believe she still defends his actions."

Henry frowned. "Who—Tesla?"

"I was actually thinking Druitt, but yeah, both of them, I guess." Kate shook her head. "They're both so screwed to hell. How come she tries so hard to save them?"

Henry shrugged. "I guess it's 'cos all three of them have their problems and they've all learned to live with each other."

"It must be nice," Kate said; her voice was uncharacteristically soft. "You know, having someone know you that well, being able to trust someone with knowing that much…"

Slowly, she leaned her head down to rest lightly on Henry's shoulder. In that moment, the techie felt like he wasn't breathing—probably because he had stopped. Slowly and cautiously, he slid his arm around the ex-mercenary. Kate snorted and Henry skittishly pulled back, but Kate grabbed his wrist before he could retreat.

"I'm sorry," she said. "It's in my nature to be a smartass. You don't have to go."

Henry just stared at her for a moment before a soft smile crossed his face.

*

Helen arrived at Isolation Room Three to see her young protégé and her butler standing at the viewing window. A strobe effect from within the room reflected on their tense faces.

"Seems to have more finesse this time around," Will was saying to Bigfoot. "The first time the entire room was one big ball of lightning and Tesla was having a little too much fun. Creepiest damn thing I've ever seen in my entire—"

"How are they?" Helen spoke up as she joined them.

"Magnus!" Will exclaimed. "You really shouldn't—"

"It's just a cut, I'm fine," she said firmly. "Now, how are they doing?"

Will moved out of the way so Helen could peek inside the flashing room as Bigfoot explained. "Dr. Tesla is taking his time for this second attempt. I believe, at the moment, he is trying to figure out why the effects of his first treatment wore off."

Inside the room, John lay flat on his back, unconscious, and Nikola stood at his head of the reclined chair. His sleeves were rolled up past the elbow, and he had both hands spread a few inches above John's skull. Electricity arced and bucked over the Ripper's head and Nikola's expression was one of intense concentration.

"Very well," Helen said, finally. "Let me know the instant he finishes." She started off and then turned, walking backward as she called back. "Oh, and when John awakens, run some psychological tests on him, would you, Will? If he really is sane, you can release him. Even sane, he's just impatient enough to risk teleporting out of the isolation room with the EM shield up."

Then she walked off to her office to get some work done and wait. She couldn't handle just standing there and watching, but she also couldn't let herself rest and risk drifting off to sleep. Not again. She couldn't take another of those nightmares—each one worse than the last and the latest had nearly been enough to kill her.

So, she forced herself to work. And though her hands moved on autopilot and she completed several tasks, her mind wasn't in it. Eventually, she just sat back in her chair and stared out the window. Almost as if it were not under her control, her mind wandered back to the memory she'd interrupted earlier in the day.

"_Well then!" Nikola clapped his hands together once and rubbed them briefly. "About that electrocution story, I'm looking forward to telling it at tonight's meeting. I went to crash Edison's blasted patent party for _my _work on an electric chair and made an intriguing discovery about my own physiology—which, funnily enough, brings me back to the hair…"_

_Abruptly he stopped speaking and glanced round. "Where's Druitt?"_

_Helen glanced at James and licked her lips. "He's not feeling well."_

_Nikola's clear eyes narrowed as he analyzed his two friends. "Oh really?"_

_Helen nodded and Nikola took a step closer to her, looking intently into her eyes. "There's more than that."_

"_We believe his new power may be affecting his mind," Nigel's disembodied voice spoke up. _

"_Must you really be invisible at all times?" Nikola snapped irritably._

"_I'm practicing," Nigel shot back. "Just like how you are forever using those claws of yours when a letter opener or a knife would suffice."_

"_Fair point. Go on."_

"_He's not himself," Helen said, quietly. "Nigel's initial assessment is the only working theory we have at the moment."_

"_And it makes the most sense," James interjected. "The condition seems to get worse and worse every time he teleports. It's gotten to the point that…" The hyper-observant abnormal trailed off, breaking eye contact with Tesla._

_Nikola looked around at them all, even including the unseen Nigel in his glare. "To the point that…what?" he growled._

"_He hit Helen," Nigel said in his usual blunt way._

_Anger replaced mischievousness as the sparkle in Nikola's eyes. Almost involuntarily, his vampiric traits emerged with a snap. The others didn't even jump anymore at the sight of the angled black-red eyes, grin of shark teeth, and talon-like claws. _

"_Where is the poor, sick man?" he hissed in the guttural voice of his vampire ancestors._

"_We don't know," Helen soothed, putting a hand on his arm. "He teleported away the instant after he struck me. Look, calm down, Nikola, the bruise is already gone."_

"_That's not the _point, _Helen!" Nikola cried. His face went back to normal human structuring, but the eyes, teeth, and voice remained. "He _hit _you! How can you still defend him?"_

"_Because he's my _husband_, Nikola!" Helen yelled right back in his face. "I love him and I'm going to _help _him, not kill him the minute he makes one mistake!"_

_Nikola just stared at her as if she'd slapped _him _across the face. His extended irises melted back to normal and Helen was shocked at the pain in those clear eyes._

"_One mistake…" he breathed in his normal voice. His face tensed. "But he _hit _you." _

"_And I'm fine," Helen assured him with a smile._

_Nikola faintly returned her smile, but he still looked like he was worried for her life._

Helen came out of the memory gradually this time. Still staring out the window, she took a deep breath and let it out. Yes, she had loved John at one point, but could those feelings really continue? What if Nikola couldn't fix John permanently? What if the monster known as the Ripper came out one day and never left? She had been Mrs. Helen Druitt for a relatively short time when compared to her long life, but the happy memories in that time were few and far between. What if she had made a different choice all those years ago? How would her life have been affected?

Helen shook her head to clear that train of thought. She was glad for the choice she made, because that choice had given her Ashley. All the pain she went through with John was worth getting those twenty-odd years with her gem of a daughter. However, the thought of Ashley immediately brought to memory the most recent nightmare and Helen nearly screamed again as a knee-jerk reaction. Calming her breathing, she sent her mind back to the distant past and lighter thoughts. She couldn't help but wonder at the possibilities.

Mrs. Helen _Tesla_.

She smiled. Feeling like a schoolgirl, she drew the name out in flourished strokes of fountain pen on a nearby blank piece of paper. It had a certain ring to it, certainly—

All of a sudden, the door swung open. "Mission accomplished!"

Helen actually let out a yelp of surprise when she saw Nikola standing in the open doorway with one hand on his hip.

"Don't you _knock_?" she gasped, quickly shoving the incriminating piece of paper into her desk drawer.

Nikola frowned in genuine confusion. "Whatever for?"

"Well, common courtesy for one," Helen snapped.

Nikola simply grinned and strolled inside, shutting the door behind him. "Come now, Helen, we know one another well enough to abandon common courtesy, surely."

Without waiting for an invitation, he plopped down on the couch and sighed deeply, clearly exhausted. For a moment she thought he was going to pass out and leave her alone in silence for once. But then he turned his head without lifting it from the back of the couch, focusing those magnetic—no pun intended—eyes on her.

"The protégé said you wanted to know when I was done." He lifted his hands. "It is _finito._"

Shaking her head with a small smile, Helen got up and crossed the room. It seemed she could never stay mad at the man. "And?" she said, seating herself primly next to him on the couch. "How did it go?"

"I had no idea how exhausting the entire process would be on a mortal body," Nikola said, still not lifting his head or straightening from his slouch. "I'm feeling quite fatigued. I don't even know if I'll be able to stand again."

"Actually, I was referring to John's outcome."

Helen didn't miss the way Nikola's smile faltered for a split second. He sat up straight now and cleared his throat. "Right, well, in summation, Jack the Ripper is safely locked away in the bald one's head once more."

"Did you find out what happened to make him lose his mind again?"

Nikola looked at her seriously. "This time he didn't lose it, Helen. Someone took it from him."

Helen's dubious frown was question enough for Nikola to go on.

"I can tell from the scarring on his brain that someone else gave him quite a nasty shock. Whoever they were, they all but pushed the reset button. I've turned him back into John Druitt for now, but honestly, this incident just proves that the effects are always reversible with the right know-how. It's like playing a deadly game of ping-pong with an invisible opponent." He glowered at a sudden memory. "_Which_, by the way, Nigel enjoyed _way _too much."

Helen giggled at the memory of Griffin trying out his power and his gift for making up new games. The table tennis match had ended with a rather bruised and pissed-off Nikola threatening to slice a hysterically laughing Nigel's throat in his sleep—invisible or not.

Helen quickly sobered, though. "Any ideas on who this invisible opponent might be?"

Nikola shook his head. "I only know of one organized force with the intelligence and morbid curiosity to manipulate minds."

"But the Cabal was destroyed."

"Was it?"

Helen stared at Nikola's intense gaze and felt her heart sinking. "I'd hoped so."

Nikola sighed. "I had as well, but let's be honest, Helen. An organization as old and as powerful as the Cabal doesn't just collapse after their prime experiments fail and a vampire and an ex-serial killer crash a few of their parties."

"You're right—as usual," Helen said, rubbing her temples. "They probably just retreated back into secrecy so we would leave them alone. We'll have to seriously consider strategies to wipe them out for good."

"Tomorrow, though, yes?" Nikola said, grabbing her hand. "Remember what I said about relaxing?"

Helen reluctantly returned his questioning smile and abruptly looked down to her hand, held in his. She looked back up to his face and saw that he was smirking again and his eyes were half-lidded, focused on her lips. Clearing her throat overly loudly, Helen yanked her hand free.

Nikola started talking again as if nothing had happened. "Although in some areas I think you might be relaxing too much. It's quite worrying that the EM shield was down, allowing Jacky to pop in and ruin a lovely meal."

Helen sighed. "The shield is mainly there to keep John out. After he vanished, I decided to leave the porch light on—as it were—in case he needed a quick escape from wherever he went."

"Or if he needed an easy way to get inside and kill us all," Nikola said dryly.

Helen sighed in frustration now. "_Clearly_, I made a mistake, Nikola. The shield is up now."

Nikola just shook his head. "I'll never understand how you can let your guard down around the man. He's a monster in the skin of a human, for heaven's sake."

"And _I _cannot understand your ongoing refusal to forgive mistakes!" Helen exclaimed. "Failure is what makes life interesting. It's what makes us press on, always reaching for new and exciting things."

"I managed to feel the urge to discover and invent for a hundred and thirty years without the human tendency to fail," Nikola retorted.

Helen smiled sweetly, bitingly. "Well, you're human now, so you might as well get used to it."

"I was practically the same before the Source blood as I was under its influence," Nikola snapped back. "Why should I change now?"

"Because it's _unhealthy_, Nikola," Helen said, pleading now. "You've got to learn to make mistakes. Back at Oxford, your obsessive-compulsive disorder and your rigid perfectionism were an ongoing curse. The littlest errors in your own work nearly drove you mad and you would lock yourself away for hours and days and weeks without speaking to any of us and barely eating!"

She stopped for a breath and barely noticed Nikola's gaze softening as she ranted on about his well-being.

"Do you know how many nights I sat in the hall outside your room and cried? Do you know that I prayed for you every night? For God's sake, Nikola, you practically killed John tonight! _John_! One of the Five! It's just the three of us now—how _could_ you?"

To her utter shock, Nikola didn't snipe back. She fully expected him to make fun of her for scolding him like she was his mother. At the very least, she expected a defensive, sarcastic comment along the lines of 'perhaps you would have preferred it if I'd done nothing and let the lunatic slice your throat open.'

But instead, Nikola merely looked terribly apologetic.

"I'm sorry, Helen," he said, softly. "I truly am. It's just…when I saw you with that dagger…and he threatened to…I just couldn't…"

He trailed off, shaking his head, and looked down at his hands, which were fidgeting—as per usual. Helen had never, in all the years she'd known him, seen Nikola at a loss for words. Impulsively, she reached out and grabbed one of his hands, holding it tightly in both of hers.

"I never said thank you," she said, softly and sincerely. "Thank you for protecting me."

Nikola's smile was as soft as his voice. "There's no need to thank me, Helen."

Helen smiled, biting her lip to keep it from growing into a full grin. "Remember Nigel always called you my little guard dog?"

Nikola groaned. "Just because he was abnormally tall didn't give him the right to add that particular adjective."

"But he was right, in his own way," Helen went on. "You've always protected me so well. From my very first day at Oxford when that chauvinistic imbecile harassed me about being a woman in a man's land."

"It was a rather romantic first meeting," Nikola said, with a nod. "If nothing else, it was dramatic."

Helen chuckled, still reminiscing. "You took a punch in my defense that day."

Nikola rubbed his jaw ruefully with his free hand. "Ah, the bastard was lucky James broke up the fight before I got a chance to swing back."

"It was like fate, the three of us meeting like that," Helen said, her voice going soft. "That you would cross my path at the exact moment the brute was yelling. And that James would happen along just as you went down…"

"I didn't go down," Nikola protested indignantly.

Helen bit back a grin. "True, but only because you fell into me and I caught your arm."

Nikola glowered, which made Helen finally burst out laughing. She squeezed his hand lightly. "You're a good friend, Nikola."

He studied her face and she could practically see words in his eyes, on the verge of escape from his mouth. But for some reason, he held back and just smiled.

"Right," he said, sounding despondent for some reason. "Friends."

Helen returned his smile and stood. "Good night, Nikola."

"Do you mind if I sleep here?" he asked, looking up at her. "It's surprisingly comfortable and I do believe if I try to make it to my own quarters, I'll most likely collapse in the hallway."

Helen laughed. "You can't keep sleeping in here, Nikola. I don't trust you with the controls of the entire sanctuary at your fingertips. Come on. My room's much closer than yours."

Nikola arched one eyebrow as he stood. "My dear Miss Magnus, how very forward of you."

Helen rolled her eyes. "I plan on pulling an all-nighter. You'll be sleeping _alone _in my bed."

Nikola tilted his head attentively. "_Now_ who's ignoring health in favor of work?"

Helen just gave him a warning smile. They walked to her room in sleepy silence. Once there, Nikola didn't wait for an invitation. Kicking off his shoes, he slipped out of his vest before falling back onto the bed. He let out a long, tired groan, with his eyes closed, arms spread wide.

"Oh, it just figures that the place where an angel sleeps would be this soft."

He peeked his eyes open to catch Helen's blush.

"Good night, Nikola," she said, firmly. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Nikola chuckled to himself and slipped under the covers, shifting to get comfortable. Helen was all the way to the door when she realized she should probably grab her journal before her curious friend discovered it. Silently, she crept back over to the bed and grabbed the book off the nightstand.

Nikola was already asleep, breathing deeply. Helen smiled. He really had exhausted himself. Even before he had become a half-vampire, Nikola would "forget to sleep" while working on his most recent project. It was only after several days and nights straight without so much as a catnap that his body would rebel against his determined brain and knock him out for some much-needed rest.

Helen stood and watched him sleep for the second night since he'd become mortal. It helped to be able to watch him breathe without him knowing. Seeing him alive and well made the nightmares fade away.

It was then that she got the idea.

The plan itself couldn't have been simpler, but the consequences would be very complicated. Biting her lip, Helen tilted her head back and forth; it was the only sign of an intense inner debate. This could hypothetically create a lot of chaos, but the theory needed to be tested. In the end, the scientist in Helen won over the woman. (Although the woman silently cheered the plan). She could deal with the aftermath when it struck.

Moving carefully and hoping that his human self still slept as deeply as in the old days when exhaustion knocked him out, Helen stealthily slipped off her boots and jacket and slid delicately under the covers as well. Nikola didn't stir, but Helen continued to move like a ninja as she scooted right up to him. She stopped when her back was pressed against his chest—when she could smell the wine and spices on his clothes and feel his breaths against the back of her neck. Only when each of her breaths was full of him did she let her mind relax and surrender to sleep.

And she didn't have a single nightmare.

TBC


	5. Chapter Five: Complications

Hee-hee. This one's shorter than the rest because where I stopped writing was just too perfect for me to continue. Not to worry, the next chapter will be up soon. It's already half-written.

**Disclaimer**: Don't own Sanctuary, but I wish I did.

* * *

**Chapter 5 – Complications**

* * *

"So the doc's sleeping in," Kate said, shrugging. "So what?"

"No, you don't know Magnus," Henry said, shaking his head. His brow was tense as he hurried through the hallways and Kate—to her surprise—had to work hard to keep up. "Magnus is always up before everyone," Henry spoke as fast as he was walking. "If she was _dying_, she would still be awake before noon."

Kate sighed and rolled her eyes, but they'd arrived outside Helen's room. For all of his gung-ho charging through the Sanctuary, Henry was suddenly very timid at the sight of the closed door.

"Knock," Kate urged.

"Pfft. You first." Henry took a physical step back.

Just then, Bigfoot and Will turned the corner. Immediately, the young psychiatrist frowned. "What's wrong?"

"It's one pm and Magnus hasn't left her room," Kate explained. "Wolfy here was worried."

"You sure she's in here?" Will asked, pointing to the closed door. "Sometimes she falls asleep at her desk."

"Checked there first," Henry said, shaking his head. "She's not in any of the labs or her office or even the kitchen."

Will frowned at the door as if it would give him answers. "Did anyone hear her scream?"

Everyone shook their respective heads.

"My room's right next door and I never heard a thing," Kate put in.

"That means no nightmares," Will mused. "Maybe her body's just catching up on sleep."

"It's after noon and this is Magnus we're talking about!" Henry spluttered. "Am I seriously the only one who's worried?"

*

Helen opened her eyes peacefully and found herself staring at the ceiling. She smiled widely. She'd never felt this at peace and rejuvenated after waking. It was like she was twenty again. The best part was that she'd had normal, benign dreams all night. Her hypothesis was correct! She felt like jumping on the bed and singing the Hallelujah Chorus, but settled for a big, happy sigh.

Which awakened Nikola from his half-asleep state.

_Oh, hell,_ Helen thought as realization hit her hard. _My hypothesis was _correct_. _

He was lying on his side, one arm across her stomach, protectively holding her against him. His face was a mere breath away from her neck and she could feel, as well as hear, the sleepy groan that left his lips as he shifted slightly. Helen caught her breath and held it. Nikola stirred again, still not opening his eyes. This time he rubbed his face against the pillow—and her hair that was splayed across it. His smile brushed her ear as he inhaled deeply.

"Mmm…" His voice was husky with sleep. "You smell like candy and flowers."

Suddenly his whole body tensed and Helen could see his eyebrow-wrinkling frown in her mind's eye. Smoothly, he went from lying down to propped up on one arm above her. His knees on either side of one of her knees. Understandably confused blue eyes stared down into hers.

"_Helen_?"

"Good morning, Nikola," Helen said with a weak smile.

Still holding himself above her, Nikola looked around the room, as if trying to decide whether or not he was dreaming. His lips were parted slightly and his eyebrows were still knit together in confusion. His wrinkled dress shirt hung loose, the tempting buttons less than a foot from her eyes. Helen swallowed hard and quickly looked away, clearing her throat.

"Before you say anything," she said calmly, "I can explain."

He looked back down at her and his tension faded to his silky smirk. "Thought you said I'd be sleeping in your bed _alone_, darling."

Helen rolled her eyes. "Really, Nikola? Is now the appropriate time for your usual antics?"

Nikola shrugged. "You voluntarily crawled into bed with me. Yes, I think it's the _perfect_ time." He smiled libidinously. "You know, you didn't have to be so sneaky. I would've said yes."

He dipped his head and Helen barely turned her face sharply to the side in time. Unperturbed, Nikola kissed what he could, letting his lips graze the sensitive skin just under her ear. Helen gasped involuntarily and could feel his mouth stretch into a smile at the sound. One hand still supported his weight off of her, but the other slid under the small of her back. His long fingers brushed under her shirt and the warmth against her spine sent paradoxical chills through her whole body.

"_Focus_, Nikola," she snapped.

"You're going to have to be a bit more specific," he murmured against her ear. "Because I consider myself to be _extremely_ focused right now."

His lips moved down, barely brushing her jaw before settling lingeringly on her neck. His tongue slipped out, joining the massage of his lips. Helen's eyes rolled as her eyelids fluttered closed, but for once it wasn't a sign of her exasperation. She licked her lips. All during this movement, his hand was sneaking its way ever higher up her back. He trailed kisses across her neck, being ever-so-gentle and mindful of her stitches. Then he moved upward, touching her chin once with a light kiss. With surprising power, he abruptly pulled her upper body off the bed with the arm under her back and darted his mouth down toward hers.

Helen grabbed a fistful of his shirt, firmly halting his movement. For several heartbeats, they remained that way, bodies and lips inches apart, breathing hard. Nikola's arm quivered from holding her up against him but his mouth tugged up higher on one side to form his crooked grin.

"Getting a little too excited, Miss Magnus? I can go slower if you—"

"Get _off_," Helen said, mustering all of the threatening she had in her nature. It was quite a bit.

Nikola's mouth snapped shut and his eyebrows rose. Without another word, he let her fall back to the bed and rolled onto his side and off of her, freeing her. Feeling like she was able to draw the first real breath since she'd woken, Helen sat up and took a few deep ones. She was grateful for Nikola's quick obedience. For all of his lecherous comments and insistent flirting, he really was a gentleman under that snarky smirk. John, on the other hand, was the opposite. He had every appearance of dignified chivalry—even when he was killing women—but under his polite smile was a monster that would never have stopped from getting what it wanted if _John_ had been the one atop of her in that bed.

"Right, then." Helen made a failed attempt at straightening her clothes and hair. "_Now _will you listen to me?"

She looked down at Nikola. He was lying on his side, elbow bent on the pillow so that his hand supported his head. With his other hand, he was lightly running a tousled curl of her thick hair between his thumb and fingers.

"Nikola, pay attention!" she hissed, slapping his hand away.

He withdrew his hand, but pouted. "We're lying in a warm bed together with the sun shining in and I have absolutely _no_ desire to drink your blood, and you expect me to pay attention? My dear Helen, I think you greatly underestimate your own attractiveness, especially in this disheveled state."

The forefinger of his free hand had started tracing random patterns on her bare forearm halfway through his rambling and she—so taken with his low, hypnotic voice—hadn't noticed until he finished talking. Jerking her hand away, Helen realized she had to achieve more distance for both their sakes.

In retrospect, she really should have calmed down before scrambling across the tangled sheets and downy comforter. Or at the very least, she should have focused on where her limbs were moving instead of thinking about the way Nikola's eyes must have been following her rear.

But shit happens and hindsight is 20/20 and all that.

Her ankle tangled in the bed linens at the last possible moment before she would have stood up on the floor. As it was, she still made it to the floor, but in a very ungraceful heap.

*

"If she's sleeping peacefully, we should let her sleep," Will insisted in the ongoing argument just outside. "Remember what Tesla said at dinner? She needs to be spoiled once in awhile."

The rest of the group had barely started to nod in agreement when they all heard a loud yelp/shriek, followed by a massive _thump_ that rattled the door in its frame. Kate's hand went to her pistol and Henry immediately turned the doorknob just before Bigfoot would have splintered the door off its hinges.

"Magnus?!" Will cried, rushing in along with everyone else.

A very startled Helen sat up sharply from the floor, staring at them with saucer-wide eyes. But she wasn't as shocked as her team when they noticed a grinning, equally-rumpled Nikola lounging atop the mussed sheets of the bed.

"Ho…lee…crap," Kate breathed.

"What the…_hell!_?" Henry started softly, but ended in a yell.

"Good morning, all!" Nikola called cheerfully.

Will just stared at him in shock and, for the life of him, the only thing he could think of to say was: "It's afternoon…"

Bigfoot seemed immune to the scandal hovering thick in the air. He lumbered over to Helen as she struggled to get up. "Are you injured?"

"No, no, I'm fine," Helen protested as she stood and dusted herself off. She smiled tightly at them all, nodding reassuringly. "Really, I'm fine."

"Looks to me, you're a bit more than _fine_, doc," Kate said, grinning now as she nodded pointedly toward Tesla.

With obsessive-compulsive anxiety, Nikola had been trying to fix his shirt—alas, in vain—but now he looked up and graced them all with a boyishly-wide, mischievous grin. Helen glared at him for the suggestive expression and then spun to face the others.

"No," she laughed, lightly. "We weren't—"

"S'okay with me, doc," Kate said, holding up both hands as if in surrender. "No need to make excuses. You're both grown ups."

"But we really didn't—" Helen tried again.

"You see, Helen?" Nikola piped in. "I told you they'd be understanding."

Helen spun to glare at him even more viciously. "You said no such thing! There's nothing to be understanding _of_." When she looked back at the others, she could tell they were even more convinced of the surety of their initial assumptions. "We merely slept together."

"Oh, 'merely'—is that all?" Henry said. His voice was noticeably higher in pitch as he tried for calm while freaking out internally. "Merely. Huh. That's cool. I think I should go now."

Kate grabbed the back of his shirt collar to keep him escaping.

"No, you misunderstand me." Helen took a very deep breath to calm herself. "We were sleeping in the same bed because I was testing a theory. Nothing else happened."

"Sounds like a fun theory," Kate said, smothering her grin with only partial success.

"Oh, you've _no_ idea," Nikola said, shaking his head and looking as solemn as was possible for him.

"Nikola—_shut up!_" Helen spun on him. "Honestly, the situation is incriminating enough without your little comments."

"Angel, after last night, I'll give you the world on a platter if you ask for it."

Helen's eyes could have made Lucifer himself run screaming back to hell. However, at the ferocious glare, Nikola merely raised both eyebrows in innocence and mimed 'zipping his lips and throwing away the key'.

"Now," Helen said firmly, facing the others. "As most of you know, I have been experiencing night terrors of some substantial intensity the past few nights. What you may not know is that all of them have revolved around Nikola's horrifically violent death."

"How romantic," Nikola piped up, sarcastically. "We really must delve into your psyche more often."

Adopting the strategy of simply ignoring him, Helen went on. "My theory was that if I slept close enough to Nikola, my subconscious would sense his very much alive presence and cease plaguing me with nightmares. I swear on my life, _we did not have sex_."

At the most inopportune time imaginable, John Druitt strolled into the room. He instantly took in the room and the rumpled state of two of its occupants, and then his brain processed Helen's final words. His anger was almost visible, coiling every muscle in his entire body like a cobra about to make its deadly strike.

"What is _he _doing out?" Henry nearly yelled, jumping back and holding his tablet like a shield.

"Magnus told me if he proved his sanity, he could be allowed to roam," Will said, shrugging. "I ran the tests this morning and he's fine."

"_What the devil is going on here_?!" John roared.

Nikola swept his legs over the side of the bed and stood up, all in one fluid motion. Straightening the cuffs of his hopelessly wrinkled shirt, he grinned widely and stepped up beside Helen.

"Well, Johnny, I do believe that makes it official. You have the _worst_ timing in all of history."

TBC


	6. Chapter Six: Damage Control

_**The first few lines are a quick recap of the end of Chapter 5 (in case you forgot ^_^).**_

This one's REALLY long and mostly one big flashback. I even put my own idea of how John got that five-pointed scar/burn on his chest. ^_^ I don't think the Tesla-Druitt battle was quite epic enough, but it fit how I wrote it. Oh well, maybe that's another fic waiting to be written. ^_^

**Also**: I've started reading "Wizard" which is the real Nikola Tesla's biography, and apparently the only time he ever said the words "I am in love" were when he was with a woman named Anna, whom he described as being "tall and beautiful [with] extraordinary understandable eyes." ^_^ Does that sound like anyone we know? Sadly, Anna got married. _Also_ suspiciously like Sanctuary. Hmm…

**Also, also**: BIG THANK YOU TO ALL THE REVIEWERS! I'm seriously overwhelmed, guys.

**Finally**: The beginning quote for this chapter was said to the real Nikola as a child by his mother after he was attacked by a goose. (lol, what?) I thought it appropriate.

* * *

**Chapter 6 – Damage Control**

* * *

"You must know that you cannot make peace with a gander or a cock whom you have taunted. They will fight you as long as they live." _–Djouka Mandić Tesla_

* * *

"_What the devil is going on here_?!" John roared.

Nikola swept his legs over the side of the bed and stood up, all in one fluid motion. Straightening the cuffs of his hopelessly wrinkled shirt, he grinned widely and stepped up beside Helen.

"Well, Johnny, I do believe that makes it official. You have the _worst_ timing in all of history."

John's long legs allowed him to cross the distance between himself and Nikola in the time it took Helen's heart to make one more beat. In a flash of metal, the ex-killer's knife was against Nikola's neck. Helen stopped breathing, but Nikola seemed unconcerned, staring straight back into John's furious eyes with remarkable calm.

_Didn't he remember he was mortal now?_

Helen quickly quelled another panic attack and controlled her breathing. Any minute now, she expected snippets of her dreams to come back to her. As she focused hard, internally, she still managed to observe the rapidly deteriorating situation in front of her.

"What did you do to her?" John hissed.

"Jealousy does not become you," Nikola said, shaking his head pityingly. Then he tilted his head in mock thought. "Well, actually, nothing becomes you, so never mind."

"You've no _right_—" John's voice was going lower and more hissing in his rage.

"Well, neither do you, my friend," Nikola interrupted.

"Helen is—" John tried again.

"What?" Nikola interrupted again. He waited an arrogant few seconds before speaking derisively. "Your _wife_? She doesn't belong to you, Druitt. Helen is a woman free to do what she wishes."

"You always wanted her for yourself," John growled. "I saw the lust in your animal eyes when you thought no one was looking. Every time I left, I would return to find her a few inches closer to you and a few degrees colder toward me."

"That was because you _left_ in the _first_ place," Nikola raised his voice for the first time Helen could remember. "For months at a time! It was inevitable that she would turn to me."

"I should have killed you seventy years ago," John growled. "Now, it seems I will finally be able to again."

Still, Nikola did not so much as glance at the razor-like dagger at his throat.

"Whoa!" Henry interjected, still hiding behind his tablet. "I thought we were over the whole 'kill each other' thing."

Nikola laughed mirthlessly. "Jack the Ripper, get over something? That'd be the day."

"I have a name!" John roared.

Then he started to move. To slice Nikola's throat. But somewhere between the first twitch of his hand and the point at which the Serbian genius would have been choking to death on his own blood and sliced windpipe, the dagger somehow left the Ripper's hand. Everyone in the room gasped in surprise as the dagger floated, the point of it now leveled at the back of John's neck, right where the skull meets the spinal column.

Now, Nikola's confident smile didn't look so out of place.

"I believe not moving would be advisable," the magnetic ex-vampire said.

John didn't move, but he still gripped Nikola's shirt in his fist and looked like he was contemplating going for the genius's neck with his bare hands.

Helen knew from past experience that when these two fought it was best to clear innocent bystanders out of a five mile radius and wait for the smoke to settle. But with Nikola's mortality rearing its beaten head in her mind again, Helen could stand by no longer.

"_Enough_!" she exclaimed. "The _both _of you." She gave them each a good glare, but they didn't so much as glance at her, too busy trying to injure one another using only their eyes.

"John," Helen said, focusing on her ex-husband squarely. "As I was just explaining to the others, nothing improper happened last night. Nikola and I slept near one another, fully clothed, and Nikola's presence kept me from dreaming of his violent death."

John said nothing, but continued to glare at Nikola.

"And he does have a point, you know," Helen went on, lifting her chin. "I'm not a possession."

John broke his gaze from his rival to stare at Helen. His eyes were pained at her rejection spoken in front of a small crowd, but he still said nothing. Pleased that she'd succeeded in averting the Ripper's attention from Nikola to herself, Helen didn't let him look away as she spoke in her most threatening way. She'd learned it from him.

"Let him go, John."

Nikola looked from Helen to John and grinned insufferably. John made the mistake of looking back at the slightly shorter genius. The Ripper's hand trembled, clearly very much having a strong internal debate.

"John." Helen spoke up even more firmly. "Let. Him. Go."

Lips twitching into the smile that sent chills of fear down the spines of normal humans, John uncurled his fingers from Tesla's shirt. Politely, Nikola guided the dagger back to John's hand. Admirably controlling a knee-jerk reaction to slam the weapon through Nikola's chest, John slipped the dagger back up the sleeve of his leather jacket.

"So…" Will spoke up cautiously in the intense silence. "_Slight _change of topic, but…Magnus, isn't this solution you've discovered more of a temporary kind?"

"You're right," Helen said. "I can hardly sleep in Nikola's arms every night for the rest of my life."

"I'd be happy to help," Nikola put in.

He cocked his head as the boyish grin returned. John's face twitched, but his remarkable control kept him standing where he was instead of swiftly breaking Nikola's neck. That and Helen's warning glare.

"I have another solution we could test," John spoke up lowly. But he was smiling that dangerous smile now, which meant he was past the point of simple anger. "Perhaps if the good doctor were dead, your nightmares would no longer have purpose and your subconscious would alleviate the stress."

"Mm, scary," Nikola mocked. "Sadly, if your theory is wrong, you will condemn Helen to a life of torment with her wonderful temporary solution dead."

Silenced by logic, John glowered. He'd been so looking forward to gutting the cocky scientist. For her part, Helen was touched. Nikola gave not a thought to his own death; he was only worried that without him there, she would hurt. Although, that comment might have just been a part of his humor. It was always so hard to tell with Nikola. He was much more complex than John. Which was why she was much more comfortable trading banter with Nikola than actually looking into his soulful, steely eyes and trying to connect to the powerful mind there.

"The reality is," Helen said, authoritatively, "whatever sleep I do get, I will only achieve near Nikola. _For now_." She added that last part when Nikola's smile grew even more arrogant and John's fingers started itching toward his dagger again. "Will is right. This is a temporary solution. However, it is a problem that currently can be managed while we focus on much bigger issues. Right now, what worries me more is what happened to you, John."

And just like that, Druitt and Tesla's positions swapped. It was now John's turn to have the 'ha-ha, she likes me better' smile and Nikola's turn to glower. Helen purposefully ignored the men acting like adolescents and held her arm out toward the door.

"Now, if you'll all excuse me, I'll freshen up and meet you in my office."

That was the cue and everyone began filing out of the room. Nikola hung back for a few moments, studying Helen as if committing her current appearance to memory. When he noticed that she was aware of his stare, he grinned.

"'_All_' includes you, Nikola," Helen said, a cold edge to her voice.

Nikola's grin didn't fade as he turned away. He strode through the door imperiously, as if he wasn't as mussed as she. Helen shut the door after him and rested her forehead against it, suddenly weary now that she didn't have to stand tall for the others. In truth, the showdown between Nikola and John had frightened her. It reminded her of a time long ago, when the Five still met in the Magnus home and the Sanctuary Network was merely the London building under construction. She had staved off the memories in order to stay focused on the present, but now, alone in her empty room, without the buzz of activity to distract her, the flashback hit hard.

*

"_The Ripper strikes again!" Nikola proclaimed irritably, smacking a fresh newspaper down on the table._

_Helen and John both glanced at it before looking up at the livid half-vampire._

"_We're still working on the exact dosage," Helen said calmly, going back to taking some of John's blood._

_Nikola stared at her down-turned face for a moment, fuming. Then he sat down so he was at the same level as them and focused solely on Helen as if Druitt wasn't even there._

"_How am I supposed to make a name for myself when 'Nikola Tesla' is attached to the likes of _him_!?"_

"'_John Druitt' is merely a suspect, Nikola," John spoke up, lowly. "No one knows it's really me."_

"_No, but _I _do," Nikola snapped, standing again. "And it's driving me absolutely mad!"_

"_You mean, more so than usual?" Nigel murmured—visible for once—from where he stood leaning in the doorway, cupping a mug of coffee. _

_Nikola spun on him. "Shut up, Griffin! You're not involved in this!" Then he went right back to Helen, changed his mind, and faced the seated Druitt. "Is this where you go when you disappear?" He jammed a finger at the front page article. "Off to kill whores? Why? What's the bloody logic in that, Druitt? What's the point?"_

_John purposely did not make eye contact, looking instead at Helen's hands as she bandaged the spot she'd drawn blood from. "I cannot tell you, while sane, what my thoughts were in the storm of insanity."_

"_Poetic," Nikola said dryly. "But that hardly excuses you for murder and mutilation."_

"_It's not his fault, Nikola," Helen suddenly snapped. "He's not himself when he does it."_

"_You mean he's not _completely _himself," Nikola retorted. "It's still a part of him. The Ripper is in his mind, even now, fully self-aware."_

"_Which is why my father and I are—" Helen began._

"_Even if you permanently make him _sane_," Nikola interrupted, making little air quotes around 'sane', "the Ripper will still be there and all he needs is a tiny little excuse to come out."_

_Helen shoved to her feet, eyes blazing. "Why don't you go back and play with your wires and generators and leave the complicated biogenetics to me, hm?"_

_Nikola opened his mouth to retort, but decided against it, turning and storming away. As he passed Nigel, his grinning friend made the sound of a whip cracking. Nikola shot him a glare, but for once had no energy to spar with words. He stomped up the stairs and they heard a door slam._

"_Well, well," Nigel muttered, turning back to look at the others. "If I wasn't already sold, that little performance would have convinced me that women are certainly equal to men."_

"_The feminist ranks rejoice at your conversion, Nigel," Helen said extremely dryly._

"_Oho!" Nigel laughed._

_Helen shot him a sweet smile and sat back down in front of John, wearily. John noticed the way her fair skin was slightly paler and the slight glistening of sweat on her smooth forehead. He leaned forward, resting his hand on her arm._

"_Helen, are you alright?"_

_Helen looked down at his large, strong hand and swallowed hard. Nikola's accusing words echoed in her mind and it suddenly hit her that the hands she loved to feel holding her had gutted and broken over half a dozen young women. Mastering her expression to hide her sudden fear and disgust, she looked up and immediately caught both Watson and Griffin looking at her with held breath. Their gazes said it all._

You haven't told him?

_No, she hadn't told John yet. She couldn't seem to find the right time, what with him killing people and everyone fighting all the time as of recently. Helen brushed her hand against her forehead, wishing she could just sleep peacefully for once. Would the Five never be as they had once been, ever again? _

_Helen abruptly felt like sobbing at the happy memories of their early days. The sweet moments were so far out of reach that they became bitterly sad in her mind and she cursed her wildly-swinging emotions._

"_Helen…?" John was still looking at her worriedly._

"_I'm well, John, thank you," she said, smiling at him._

_Nigel glanced at James and James sighed, shaking his head. Then he forced a smile and spoke up for the first time from his customary reading corner._

"_You know, I can't help but notice—literally—some intriguing connections between our powers on our personalities."_

"_Oh, do tell," Nigel said, striding into the room. "This sounds _fascinating_." He shot Helen an eye-roll and she smothered a smile._

_James smiled sweetly. "Very well, just for that, I will."_

_Nigel groaned overly-loudly and plopped into a chair. _

"_You, for instance," James began, staring pointedly at Nigel. "You were always a loud personality with a soft voice. A keen mind that hardly ever was spoken. When you _do _speak, it is only after precisely analyzing the situation and then darting in like a viper. Invisibility is a natural next step, genetically, for someone whose only wish is to experience life without intruding on it. Plus, as a natural practical joker, being invisible is absolutely invaluable."_

_Nigel listened attentively to the entire observation while simultaneously causing separate parts of his body to go invisible at different times. Finally, he made just his head disappear and raised his hands in a shrug._

"_I've no idea what you're talking about."_

_The others shook their heads at his quiet humor and James turned to regard John next. "You, my friend, are impatient."_

_John shrugged one shoulder as if to say he couldn't argue._

"_Always wishing to move on, to see the next thing," James went on. "As well as the strong desire you seem to have to escape awkward or unpleasant situations rather than facing them. It is your escapist personality reflected in this teleportation."_

"_And the madness?" John asked, softly._

_James looked hesitant to speak, but he always did speak his mind anyway. "I do not pretend to disagree with Nikola, my friend. This monster was somewhere inside of you long ago. I am only sorry we awakened it with the Source blood."_

_John's face tightened into hopelessness and he hung his head. Helen cupped his cheek, her heartstrings pulling for him. As usual, Nigel broke the solemnity._

"_Hey, what about Tesla?" the fully-visible man asked, grinning like a child._

_James rolled his eyes in exasperation at the mere name. "Perhaps Tesla's arrogance is best mirrored in him taking the form of the closest thing to godhood that science has proved to be real. Although, it could also be his natural protective quality that caused him to become so strong."_

"_You do know this is all genetically based, not on our subconscious," Helen said. "Nikola had the vampiris sanguine gene buried deep in his DNA."_

_James simply smiled. "Perhaps the two are more connected than we, in our current knowledge, believe. I'm sure one day you will find out, Helen. Which brings me to our dear feminist."_

_Helen merely smiled at the barb. "What have you to say, detective?"_

"_Helen has an incredible drive to discover. In fact, one might call it an obsession. What better gift for a mind like that than to live several lifetimes—plenty of time to find out what makes the world work."_

"_Are you implying, James, that this blood has supernatural qualities?" John asked, looking unusually interested._

_James shrugged. "I do not confess to know nearly all things—certainly not God or the devils."_

"_And _you_," Nigel proclaimed, jumping up and pacing dramatically. "You, dear Watson, are an insufferable creep, studying people all the time and stalking—"_

"_I never stalked anyone!" Watson spluttered._

"_Except the lovely Miss Jameson," Nigel retorted right back, batting his eyelashes._

_John and Helen both snorted._

"_Nonetheless, you always saw things no one else could before the Source blood," Nigel went on. "And now your creepiness has a new level."_

"_Brilliant, Griffin," James muttered dryly. "Just brilliant."_

"_Well, whatever the blood did to us," Helen said, sitting back in her chair. "We can only make the best of it."_

_Nigel sat back down in his chair with a loud sigh. "Ah, optimism. Spending most of my time with Tesla, such an attitude is refreshing."_

_The others chuckled, but John soon stopped to frown in thought. "Nikola has changed, hasn't he?"_

"_We all have," James pointed out._

"_No, I mean, there's something off," John went on. "Every time I return, he seems even colder. We barely got along in the first place, but now we hardly have a civil word between us anymore. Every conversation turns into a vicious battle of words."_

"_It's just his protective qualities coming out again," James said, before he could think about it. "Along with that selfish vein pumping through him."_

_John sat up a bit straighter. "What are you suggesting?"_

"_Surely you must have noticed, John?" James said, laughing lightly._

_John wasn't laughing. "You are the only hyper-observant one in the room, James."_

"_But it's so obvious," James laughed. "Even Nigel's caught it, as I'm sure Helen has."_

_John glanced round at them briefly before glaring back at James. It was times like this that Helen could see that killer side of him more clearly._

"_Nikola may be protective," James delved into explaining. "But it hardly ever shows because he does so well at looking out for himself. One will only see him leap to someone's defense around those he values most. Family and friends, for instance. And Mrs. Helen Druitt."_

_John got it then. He understood and immediately looked at Helen. _

_She couldn't meet his eyes. Not from guilt—she and Nikola had never made love. But the idea of it had crossed her mind too many times for a proper young married woman. In the spanning months of John's absences, in her darkest moments, Helen would escape inside herself, to the place no one else—not even the rest of the Five or her father—could see. There, she would console herself and such fantasies would often lead to her unconsciously flirting in the real world. _

_It was so subtle that she doubted even Watson had noticed. And if he had, he would certainly attribute it to something else—because no good married girl looks to a man other than her husband to fight off loneliness. Oh, but she _was_ lonely. And, when John was absent for long enough, she even grew angry at him—to the point of sobbing into her pillow. When Nikola stayed at the house, he was the only one who heard her screams—because of his superhuman traits. It had almost become tradition for the two of them to spend their nights in the sitting room, sharing tea and talking until she would finally fall asleep, exhausted. Congratulating himself that he'd taken her mind off of her anger and pain, Nikola would carry her back to her room and she would wake with vague, warm memories of the night before._

_Out of all of it, she'd grown closer to Nikola than she'd ever thought possible back when they'd first met. He was always so cold and aloof and yet his personality was magnetic at the same time. It was a combination that left a trail of crushed hearts in his wake wherever he went—Helen's included. It was why she'd been drawn to John initially; because he, unlike Nikola, paid attention to her—almost to an obsessive degree._

"_Helen?" John spoke._

_She lifted her head. Through all of her internal speculation and musing, John had been staring at her, waiting for her to make some kind of response._

_Helen shrugged delicately. "I'm not sure what James is insinuating by that statement."_

_But she had never been that good at lying. Especially not to John. His unblinking eyes always seemed to peel her right to her core. She always felt naked around him. At one time, the stare had made her skin crawl, but now she didn't mind—or had she just learned to ignore it?_

"_Uh-oh," Nigel muttered. "Tesla's got a crush on a married woman? Wouldn't be the first time. Did I ever tell you about Anna—"_

_John stood to his feet so abruptly, his chair hit the ground with a clatter. Instead of rushing upstairs with murderous intent, as Helen expected him to, John continued to glare down at her. She could see the fire burn molten in his eyes, but this time it did not fade. It built upon itself until finally it burst forth, slinging his hand in a backhanded blow._

_Helen tumbled from her chair, landing hard. _

"_John!" James yelled, jumping to his feet._

_Nigel didn't waste time with words; he just grabbed John's arm, physically restraining him from further assaulting the helpless Helen. John easily tossed the half-visible Griffin aside, growling in wordless anger. Nigel hit the bookshelf next to Watson and slid down it, stunned. _

_John didn't even get to turn around fully before Nikola struck him, moving at vampiric speeds and seeming to appear from nowhere. In the span of one heartbeat, the two hit the wall fifteen meters away, opposite from the door. John was half-imbedded in the plaster when Nikola pulled back. _

_Before the vampire could strike, John quickly teleported to the opposite side of the room. Nikola spun one hundred eighty degrees with unbroken smoothness and the others tensed at the sight of his fang-filled mouth and predatory eyes. _

"_You bastard!" John screamed, still at a safe distance. _

"_Funny," Nikola said, his voice guttural. "I was about to say the same to you."_

_John yelled a wordless animal howl and teleported twice, jumping closer and closer to a Nikola, who was waiting for him with a grin and claws bared. Nigel jumped between them at the last minute._

"_Stop, you imbeciles!" he yelled. _

_John barely did so and that was only because he heard Helen's grunt of pain. Nikola, as well, looked over sharply and his vampiric side vanished instantaneously._

_James was helping Helen back onto a chair and she looked even paler and weaker. An angry red mark was already darkening to a bruise on her cheekbone. She looked up at the three men watching her worriedly and smiled._

"_I'm fine."_

_Nikola hissed in anger at her ambivalent attitude and his eyes snapped black as they slid back to glare at John. _

"_She's just feeling a little ill," James said. "I think maybe some rest. Probably just the heat, you know—"_

"_It's not sickness," John growled, stomping over and shoving James out of the way. He bent and grabbed Helen's shoulders. "What's wrong Helen? Is it emotional duress? Did someone hurt you?"_

"_You mean someone _besides _you?" Nikola spat, standing nearby, but not intervening—yet._

_Helen choked back a sob. This wasn't how she'd wanted to tell John. She'd hoped to tell him that night when they were lying in bed together after an entire month of being apart. She'd hoped to see the love shine from his eyes at the news—a rarer and rarer occurrence as of late. She didn't want this; the pain and nausea on her part and rage on his._

"_Did _he _hurt you?" John roared, standing straight and glaring at Nikola. "If he so much as _touched _you wrongly, I'll rip him apart."_

"_You can surely try," Nikola retorted. "I'm not a defenseless street girl you can gut like a dead fish."_

"I'm not that man_!" John roared, taking a threatening step toward the calm Nikola._

"_Sure, not right this second," Nikola said, coolly, "but you're getting close."_

_John growled wordlessly and snatched the syringe full of his blood off the table. "You want my curse, Tesla? Let me give it to you!"_

"_The madness isn't in your blood, Johnny," Nikola scoffed. Nevertheless, it didn't stop the vampire from taking a cautious half-step back._

"_John, I'm pregnant!" Helen blurted, sobbing._

_John nearly exploded. "What—by _him_?" He pointed at Nikola with the syringe._

"_No, you ridiculous _ape_," Nikola snapped, taking a step forward and knocking the syringe away. The blow was so strong, the needle stuck into the bookshelf on the opposite wall. "You're the father! She's been nothing but faithful to you—to the point of losing her own health!"_

"_And I'm sure you know that, hm?" John growled, striding forward. "While I'm gone, I'm sure your charm only doubles!"_

"_I don't like what you're insinuating, Jack," Nikola growled as well, gone vamp again._

"_Don't call me that!" John roared. Still yelling, he teleported once, a short jump, and suddenly he was in front of Nikola. He grabbed the vampire's jacket. "How many times did she bravely turn you down?"_

"_I never _offered_!" Nikola yelled back._

"_Oh? I thought that was what you did," John sniped. "Impress the ladies with your wit, charm them with your smile, and take away their innocence. Isn't that what got you discharged from that Austrian school?"_

"_Lies!" Nikola hissed. "Rumors started by all those jealous classmates. I dropped out because my grades had failed."_

"_Ah, yes, and little Tesla has to be absolutely perfect," John sneered._

"_Um, excuse me!" Nigel piped up. "Hate to interrupt this lovely—and very intelligent—conversation, but are you still fighting over Helen or has this turned into a schoolyard fistfight?"_

"_Nigel!" James snapped. "Don't egg them on, so. They don't need fuel for this fire."_

"_On the contrary," John said, suddenly chillingly calm. "Fire sounds wonderful right now, don't you think, Nikola?"_

_The last thing Helen saw was Nikola's black-red eyes go wide in abrupt and unwelcome fear before both men vanished in a swirl of red flame. _

"_No!" Helen cried, reaching out to stop them, though she was too far away._

"_Helen, please don't strain yourself," James urged. "I don't know why, but for some reason, this pregnancy is countering the effects of the Source blood in your body. You might die of illness if you aren't careful."_

"_You have to stop them, James," Helen said, ignoring his warning. "They're going to kill each other."_

"_John mentioned fire," Nigel said quickly._

_James had it figured in a snap. "The Christmas bonfire in the square. Half the city's down there." He turned to Helen. "Stay here, my dear. I think I know what John is planning. Nigel, come on."_

_The two men rushed from the house, but Helen refused to stay behind. She gathered her strength, pushed to her feet, and followed them. The Magnus home was only a few blocks from the main square, and so she arrived after the initial panic had ensued. _

_John had teleported to midair above the bonfire, released Nikola, and teleported safely to the ground. His motions were too quick for the citizens to notice, but they couldn't miss a full-fledged vampire writhing on the two-story pile of wood._

_Nikola quickly leaped from the flames and put himself out, but not before the innocent civilians had seen the demonic sight of a flaming monster flying through the air. Mob panic exploded and soon the space around the bonfire was clear except for John and Nikola having another showdown, their silhouettes framed by the giant bonfire._

_John's glare rivaled the flames for ferocity. "She. Is. _Mine_."_

_Then he vanished into thin air. But Nikola's head cocked sharply and he spun around almost in the same moment that the telltale red flames sputtered into existence behind him. While John was still half-materialized, Nikola jammed the claws of one hand into the center of John's chest and from that contact point actually knocked the taller man off his feet. In slow motion, it seemed, John bent back in midair, horizontal to the cobblestones, before Nikola _slammed_ him flat onto his back. On one knee next to the Ripper, Nikola hissed in his most terrifying vampire way. _

"_You don't deserve her."_

_Then he jammed the claws of his other hand into the lamppost at his side and ten city blocks abruptly went dark as Nikola Tesla sent 800,000 volts through his claws and into his rival._

*

Helen snapped out of the memory with a gasp. She could tell that some time had passed, but not how much. Why was she suddenly growing so lost in memories as of late? Maybe it was seeing John and Nikola facing off again that had her mind shrinking back in premature fear.

As she washed up and dressed quickly, Helen recalled the aftermath of that particular incident. It had been the breaking of the Five. The group had been crumbling for years, but it was that moment that shattered it. A well-judged cobblestone flung by James had knocked Nikola unconscious before he could actually kill John, but the five-pronged mark he'd left would forever stay.

As soon as he was back in good health, John vanished again. Nikola stayed for awhile. He tried to console Helen and even combined his engineering genius with her biology genius to help her figure out a way to cryogenically freeze the embryo of her child with methods far beyond their time. He'd stayed with her for almost a full year, trying to convince her that John was gone for good, but she refused to listen. She finally screamed at him for several minutes to stop saying such things and try to stop being jealous. The next day, he'd kissed her goodbye—their very first kiss—and walked out the door.

It wasn't until much later that she made the connection between her choice and his action.

Through talking with James, Helen realized in horror that she'd been in an abusive relationship. As with most women in such a marriage, she'd been blind to the danger to herself and had been unable to look past her love for John. Then and there, she decided to leave him. It didn't matter, though, because he never came back.

John was gone for good, but Nikola popped in and out of her life for the next few decades. Then he grew bored of faking his own aging and asked for her help faking his death. She attended the funeral and afterwards had a glass of champagne with the happy Nikola. Then with a jaunty salute and a kiss on her hand, he'd vanished for good and she hadn't seen him again until that fateful day in Rome.

Nigel stayed loosely in contact for awhile, but he had always had an urge to make a family for himself that the Source blood in his veins didn't diminish. Watson remained the closest—he ran the London Sanctuary. But now Nigel and Watson were gone for good. And Nikola and John were back.

Helen checked her overall appearance in the full-length mirror and took a deep breath.

And the Cabal needed to be put down again.

TBC

**A/N. **On John's comment about Tesla being kicked out of school: The real Nikola never completed his last year at the Austrian Polytechnic School. No reason was given, but Marc J. Seifer, author of _Wizard_, said that, "Most likely, he was discharged, in part for gambling and, supposedly, womanizing." O_O XD


	7. Chapter Seven: Confessions

**A/N. **This is random but you know what I just realized? A/N is like Ashley/Nikola. *shudders* **That **would be kind of weird. I'm so pathetic though, I wouldn't mind as long as it was Niko hooking up with SOMEONE! XD

I'm sooo sorry this took so long! Gah! I'm such a bad person! I had schoolwork and my own fiction writing and a fanfic for a GW monthly challenge and _another _Sanctuary fic idea that hit me upside the head like a beach ball—don't ask—but no excuses!

Yes, it's late, but here it is and I hope you like it. I cranked it out in one sitting, so its just pure fluff, but the story progresses a bit. And just a warning…THE END IS NIGH Lol. That was a bit melodramatic. Basically, I'm planning one, maybe two more chapters after this. Although, I've kind of built my own little AU here with Nikola permanently on the team, so I guess I could go on forever if I wanted to—hypothetically speaking. ^_^

**

* * *

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Chapter 7 – Confession

* * *

"Helen, will you please, for _once_, listen to reason."

Helen looked up, startled. Nikola had entered her office without a sound and now stood on the other side of her big desk, a few feet behind the guest chairs. He had one hand on his hip in that attractive way of his and Helen quickly flicked her eyes back down to her work.

"What do you mean, 'for once'? I always listen to reason, Nikola. You're the one who takes ridiculous risks with minimal chances of success, remember?"

The engineering genius sighed deeply and walked a few steps forward, placing his hands carefully on the edge of her desk as he leaned over it. "Helen, it's been a _week_. John was no help—as per usual—but honestly, even if he did remember anything, we're not even sure if the Cabal really is back. What if there's just another electrical abnormal out there, hm?"

Not bothering to look up, Helen replied, "John wouldn't have been captured by a simple electric abnormal."

"Right, because he's superman," Nikola muttered under his breath, sarcastically.

Helen looked up with a frown. "What was that?"

"Look," Nikola barreled on. "You've gotten four hours of sleep over a span of six days, Helen. When are you going to get over your nerves and get some rest?"

Helen frowned. "My _nerves_?" She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms.

Nikola straightened from the desk and gestured flippantly with one hand. "You're mentally fighting sleeping with me again," he said, as if stating the obvious.

"Different word choice, Nikola," she warned, closing her eyes briefly.

"Fine. The thought of sleeping _near_ me again is making you anxious."

Helen spluttered out a laugh that even Henry would have noted was forced. "You overestimate your own magnetism, I think."

Nikola's mouth cracked into a grin. "That was a nice pun—how long were you waiting to drop that one?"

"About a week now," Helen replied, nodding.

Nikola's amused smile returned to a flat line. "Nevertheless, as a doctor, I insist you rest."

"You're not a doctor!" Helen laughed.

All at once, Nikola launched into a Viennese accent—the same he'd used while pretending to be Dr. Heinrich Baumschlager at his Mexico clinic not so long ago. "Now, now. Even immortal goddesses-on-earth need proper rest or they get all wrinkly and gross. We wouldn't want that now, hm?"

His lips stretched into that impossibly wide smile of his and he winked. Helen couldn't help but smile at his ridiculous charm.

*

Helen didn't bother with pajamas—she'd never really been a nightclothes person anyway. What little sleep her immortal body got, she usually got from collapsing in bed fully-clothed. So, she simply took off her boots and jacket, unpinned her hair, and shimmied into bed beside Nikola—who was also basically still dressed, and had been sitting up in bed watching her prepare.

"What, no lingerie? Not even a sheer negligee?"

Helen gave him a good-natured scowl. "Cheeky…"

Nikola smiled and lay back on the pillow. Helen followed suit and for several heartbeats that seemed minutes long, they both stared at the ceiling. Helen was just thinking that if one of the young team members were there, they would have been muttering "_Awkward_…!" in high pitch.

"You know, I was thinking," Nikola said casually, seemingly not at all affected by the tension Helen was feeling. "Those two little ones—what're they're names. The scruffy one and the lovely but annoying one?"

"Henry and Kate," Helen said, using only her tone to sufficiently scold him for his rudeness.

"Whatever." Though it was dark, she could imagine his eye-roll. "I've been observing them over the past few days and I think you might have a budding romance on your hands."

"Henry and Kate?" Helen blinked at the dark ceiling. "_Really_?"

"You haven't noticed it?" Nikola turned his head to study her profile. "I thought it was quite obvious."

"I've been so busy…" Helen trailed off and shrugged.

Nikola sighed, turning to look back at the ceiling. "Well, you're still as blind to love as ever."

"And what is _that _supposed to mean?" Helen snapped.

"It's just, back in Oxford, you and I…" Nikola trailed off and abruptly cleared his throat. "You know what, never mind. That's beating a dead horse and you clearly have no interest in me in the sense of—"

"Now hold on a minute," Helen interrupted. "You always did like putting words in my mouth, didn't you?"

"Meaning?"

"Meaning I haven't made up my mind about you, yet, Nikola Tesla," Helen said, nudging his arm under the covers with a sly smirk. "Behave yourself and who knows?"

His grin was so wide, it glinted in the darkness. Suddenly the image of the two of them lying flat on their backs, staring at the ceiling, fully-clothed and not touching one another, sank in and Helen burst out laughing.

Nikola frowned. "What?"

"Look at us!" Helen spluttered, barely able to speak around her laughter. "Both of us over a hundred and fifty, lying the dark, _chatting about young love_?"

Another uncontrollable fit of laughter racked her body and Nikola chuckled just because she was laughing. "And why is that so funny?"

"I don't know!" Helen gasped, still cracking up.

"Ah," Nikola feigned the Viennese accent again. "'Tis a case of the slaphappy, yes? Where the laughing is uncontrollable? This is usually brought on by sleep deprivation, young lady."

Helen's laughter only escalated. Her head thrown back, she laughed from her gut so hard that she was barely breathing. Rolling over she slapped Nikola's shoulder, nearly crying because of the unstoppable laughter. Caught up in her ecstasy, Nikola laughed as well. It was several moments before either of them calmed.

When they were still once again, Helen realized that she'd sidled up to Nikola in the laughing fit and her hand rested lightly on his chest. Her knee-jerk reaction was to flinch away, but she forced herself to remain still.

John was history. Nikola was her friend. He was there for her. She would certainly take this progression of emotions cautiously, but there was nothing wrong with the current situation.

Nikola felt her tense up and prepared himself for her customary distancing maneuver. When she didn't move, instead relaxing against him again, he felt his pulse spike in joy. She'd done something out of character. He fully expected her to flee his closeness, but instead, she had ducked her head, her cheek against his shoulder. He could feel every distinct line of her body against his side and the outline of her feminine hand felt like it was burned over his heart, but he didn't dare move, too afraid to startle her off.

"You know, you're right?" Helen murmured drowsily after several long minutes of warm silence.

"Yes," Nikola replied immediately. Then he frowned. "About…what. Specifically."

Helen giggled sleepily, sounding once again like the young girl he'd first met over a century ago. "About Henry and Kate. I see it now. Actually…they kind of remind me of us."

"Us?" Nikola questioned. He was glad for the evenness to his voice, though his mind shook. He'd only dreamed that the word 'us' would come out of Helen's mouth in reference to himself and her together.

"Yeah, you know," Helen went on, fast fading to sleep. "They seem mismatched at first glance. She's tough, he's a braniac…they always have these battles with their words…they're both too stubborn to admit—" She cut herself off.

"Admit what they feel?" Nikola finished for her, his voice nearly inaudible.

Helen was silent and Nikola feared for a moment that she'd fallen asleep. But then her hand moved over his chest, rubbing lightly, absently.

"Yeah," she said simply. Then she sighed. "For the sake of their happiness, I hope Henry's like you and confesses his love. Though maybe not just after being impaled, hm?"

She giggled again, a lightly rippling aftermath to the slaphappy fit from earlier. Nikola grinned at the ceiling and closed his eyes as Helen nuzzled her face against his shoulder again, sliding her hand across his stomach to hug him against her tightly.

He wanted nothing more than to reciprocate the squeeze and never let go. His fingers actually twitched where his arms lay at his sides. But if he'd learned anything from his parents' farm growing up it was that you couldn't approach a nervous animal all at once, no matter how tough they appeared on the outside.

"You know," he said, presently, "that part of my speech wasn't supposed to be in there. But when you were being so beautifully petulant and scolding, it just kind of came out. I meant to convince you to help me, not frighten you."

"I wasn't frightened." Helen took a deep breath and sighed it out, clearly half asleep already. "Truthfully, I was wondering what had taken you so long. I waited a hundred years, Nikola…. _Literally_, a hundred years for you to…"

His eyes snapped open. What had she just said?!

"Helen," he murmured.

When she didn't respond, he lifted his head from the pillow, looking down at her tousled head. She shifted and looked up at him with half-lidded eyes. He had to know. Reaching his arm across his body, he nudged a curl out of her eyes and brushed his hand across her cheek. When her eyes opened a little wider, he spoke.

"Helen, sleep can induce a near-hypnotic state and sometimes people say things without knowing it. What did you mean by what you just said?"

All at once, Helen's eyes flew wide and focused on nothing, while at the same time her face went expressionless and her entire body froze. Someone else might think she had abruptly dropped dead or gone into shock, but Nikola knew that this was what she looked like when an idea struck her.

"What is it?" he ventured only after giving her a few seconds to collect the idea into a workable theory.

"Hypnosis," she breathed, suddenly very lucid. In one motion, she released her hold on him, rolled out of bed and raced for the door—barefoot and jacketless though she was.

"Will can hypnotize John to find any memories the Cabal might have repressed when they captured him!" she yelled over her shoulder in excitement.

Then the door swung open and slammed shut behind her and Nikola was left sitting up in bed in the dark bedroom. Groaning, he shoved both hands into his hair and fell flat onto his back.

_Damn it to hell._

TBC


	8. Chapter Eight: Hypnosis and the Hypnotic

**A/N. **S_lightly longer chapta' but it's worth it. ^_^ At least I think so. It's my favorite so far as the author. I got the translations for the Serbian phrases from . If it's horribly off and anyone reading this is actually Serbian, please share your wonderful knowledge. Anyways, please enjoy and I'm sorry for taking so long to update. Feel free to throw things at me—just don't hurt my hands. I need them for writing. ^_^_

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**Chapter 8 – Of Hypnosis and the Hypnotic**

* * *

Henry was more than slightly shocked to walk into his lab and find Nikola Tesla sitting on the workbench, fiddling with wires.

"What the—!?" Henry spluttered.

Tesla didn't even look up from the copper in his hands. "Calm down, Henry, you're going to hurt yourself."

The techie caught his breath and swallowed, straightening from the doorjamb he'd fallen against. "Yeah, I just—" He frowned and nearly fell over again in realization. "You just called me _Henry_."

Tesla sighed as if in disgust and finally looked up, his eyes cold. "That is your name, isn't it?"

"Well, yeah, but…" Henry shrugged. "You've never used it. Hell, you have nicknames for all of us."

Tesla didn't dignify that with a response. Instead, he merely looked back down at the mess in his hands. Used to the man by now, Henry just sighed and walked around the table to his desk. For several moments, the two different types of genius sat in silence. Tesla broke it by flinging the mess of wire, electronics, and plastic at the wall, accompanying the shower of shrapnel with an abrupt curse in his native tongue.

"_Dođavola!_"

Henry jumped as the piece of equipment exploded against the nearby wall. Hoping it wasn't a terribly important conglomeration of wire, the werewolf glanced over worriedly at the ex-vampire. He was more than a little surprised to see the usually-dignified man hunched over where he sat on the table, hands gripping the edge, head bowed low and shoulders tight. Being a naturally caring person, Henry couldn't help but stand from his chair and inch closer, tentatively.

"Uh, hey, dude…you okay?"

At first Tesla didn't move. Then he chuckled lowly, almost darkly, before finally lifting his head to stare briefly at the ceiling.

"I don't think I've been 'okay' since before I met Helen Magnus, my scruffy friend."

Henry didn't really have a response to that, so he was glad when Tesla lowered his gaze from the ceiling, smirked, and spoke again.

"You like that Kate girl, don't you?"

And the gladness vanished. Henry flushed a brilliant red and immediately plopped back in his chair, spinning to face his computer. "I dunno what you're talking about."

Tesla chuckled and hopped gracefully off of the high table. "The question was rhetorical, Henry. I'm a genius, remember? Observation might not have been my gift from the Source, but I'm not an idiot."

Henry sighed deeply. "So what if I do? Like her, I mean."

Tesla was grinning now. "You too scared to say anything?"

"Are _you_?" Henry shot back.

Tesla's grin vanished. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, yes you do," Henry challenged. "With the doc. You joke and flirt all the time, but you really do love her, don't you?"

Tesla glared viciously at him, but the effect wasn't quite as intimidating without the black eyes and grin of fangs. Henry actually laughed a little in triumph. Tesla drew himself up imperiously, chin tilted high.

"Unlike you, however, I was brave enough to admit my feelings," Tesla shot back. He glanced away. "Although, admittedly, I originally only said those words in an effort to manipulate the good doctor into helping me. But once I'd actually said it out loud…"

Apparently just becoming aware that Henry was staring at him, Tesla cleared his throat and switched gears.

"The point remains, if you care about her, you should tell her at least once."

Henry sighed and swiveled in his chair, tapping disinterestedly at his keyboard. "Too late for that."

Tesla frowned. "If there's one thing I've learned, it's that it's never too late."

"Will asked her out," Henry muttered. "They're going for dinner and a movie."

Tesla took in the young man's despondent expression and an unwelcome image of a smug Druitt flashed through his mind. Helen's beautiful face was also in the snapshot of memory as she held out her hand toward him, diamond ring sparkling on her slender finger. But all Tesla saw in that moment—and all his mind held onto over the years—was Druitt's self-satisfied, possessive smile.

"It's just one date," Tesla said, finally. "At least she's not married."

Henry snorted and shook his head, still peering at his computer screen.

"Buck up, Tiny Tim," Tesla said, getting tough now. "Fight for her!"

"Who are _you_ to talk about fighting?" Henry snapped, spinning in his chair. "You think I don't know what you're doing down here?"

"I'm sure I don't know what you—"

"You're _hiding_, Tesla," Henry interrupted. "You can't stand to be in a room where Druitt and Magnus are together. It drives you crazy when she looks at him with even the most remote scrap of friendliness. Your jealousy tears you up on the inside even worse than the animal trapped there, but you can't scream so you just smile and make jokes and hide in the lab!"

Tesla openly stared at the impassioned werewolf.

They were more alike than even he'd imagined.

*

"I'm going to count down from five now…"

Will's voice was soothing even to Helen and she had to keep a constant awareness so as not to fall into a hypnotic trance as well. John lay on his back on the floor—because the couch would not fit his tall frame. His hands were folded on his upper stomach and his eyes were closed peacefully.

As Will counted down, Helen's mind indulged in its recent habit of turning back to the past.

"Five…"

_Nigel's loopy grin and rude antics. His shock of red hair and crooked teeth. His surprisingly impassioned views and the frown that made his eyebrows become one._

"…four…"

_Watson's laugh. His great, booming laugh that he never lost, even when he surpassed them all ten-fold in intelligence._

"…three…"

_Me. Once bright and alive, so warm I melted the hearts of four intelligent boys and drew them, enemies all, into a group wild with prospects. Now, so cold I am almost dead._

"…two…"

_Druitt. _

Helen blinked. All she could conjure up was his bald self lying there on the floor. Why could she not draw upon those happy memories that had kept her in love with him over all these years?

"…one."

_Nikola. _

That was why. He'd become her obsession over the past week. Though she told herself it was just because of the nightmares, she was finding it increasingly difficult to deny that there was something deeper. And as her mind opened up, she began to notice things. Like the way his eyes would soften when he thought she wasn't looking. The way he moved with an unnatural grace—even after the devamping. The way he would murmur in his sleep in Old Slavic, his voice soothing and smooth in her ear—

"John, can you hear the sound of my voice?"

Helen snapped out of her daydream when Will spoke again. She quickly remembered where she was and focused once again on her ex-lover lying on the floor.

"Yes…" John replied. "I can."

"Good." Will remained calm and collected. "I want you to go back with me, now. Back just a few months. When you left the Sanctuary last. Can you remember that?"

"Yes."

"I want you to picture yourself in that moment. The way you were standing, the last words you said…have you got it?"

"Yes."

"Now, I want you to take the next step. Teleport away."

John's body twitched and then tensed up.

"Where are you now?" Will pressed.

"Back in the Sanctuary," Druitt said, frowning slightly, eyes still closed. "As if I never left."

Will sighed and leaned back toward Helen. "Whoever did this did a really good job stitching up the wound. This could take time."

Helen nodded. "My presence might be disturbing things as well. Let me know when you've gotten all you can."

Will simply nodded and Helen stood and squeezed his shoulder briefly before leaving the room as silently as possible. She had no real destination in mind. Her bedroom was out, since she couldn't sleep without first tracking down Nikola. And there was no work to be done, so she bypassed her office. It wasn't until she'd descended the main staircase that her mind found purpose in the wondrous strains of a song.

She recognized the piano before the music. It was the sound of the grand piano in the main ballroom, except it was in tune for once. And it was being played with more skill than Helen had ever mastered in her 150 plus years.

She finally recognized the song just before crossing into the empty ballroom. The notes made her hesitate as they drifted around her head, sinking into her brain and launching it back into the past once again. To a time before she had met John. A time when James was a mere acquaintance and she had only Nikola to keep her sane.

_Walking away from another jeering group of pigs who dared to call themselves Oxford men, Helen kept her chin high and her tears at bay. Once she was around the corner, however, and out of sight of the enemy, she leaned heavily against the outside wall of the building and let them come. Great, heaving sobs racked her corseted frame to the point she thought she was going to suffocate. She was a strong woman, but it was days like this that had her almost running back to her father and giving up on becoming a scientist. Surely she could help with the study of abnormals in other ways…_

"_Helen?"_

_The soft voice made her look up sharply. There stood Nikola Tesla, the wiry Serbian who had saved her last week from a possibly violent encounter. Over the following days, the two had grown closer, taking extra long lunches or simply walking the grounds, discussing science and ideas. She felt she knew him well already. He wanted to be an engineer and had several ideas that made his professors think he was crazy. Namely something to do with alternating current. Most of the electrical nonsense went over Helen's head, but she loved watching Nikola's face when he rambled about it. It was rare to see that much passion in a man's eyes._

"_Nikola," Helen said finally, once she was sure her voice would not shake. "I'm sorry I kept you waiting. I was—"_

_He took a smooth step forward and offered his pocket handkerchief with a flourish. "Miss Magnus, being late for a lunch appointment is hardly an issue when a lady is in tears. Was it Bates again?"_

_Helen shook her head with a helpless shrug as she dried her eyes thankfully. "I've lost the ability to tell them apart at this point."_

_Nikola smiled at her attempt at humor and graciously held up a hand when she tried to return his handkerchief. "You keep it, Helen. Never know when a delicate woman will burst into tears again, hm?"_

_Quirking an eyebrow, he offered his arm. Though she knew he was joking, it didn't stop Helen from slapping his forearm. Apparently he wasn't expecting strength in the blow, judging by his facial reaction, but the smirk was soon back._

"_Alright, just for that, you have to keep your eyes closed the whole way to your surprise."_

_Helen spluttered and protested, but Nikola refused to move until her eyes were safely closed. Then he gently took her hand and wrapped it around his forearm, guiding her down the cobblestone street. They walked in silence—broken only by Helen's nervous giggling and Nikola's insistence that she keep her eyes closed. _

_They entered a building and Helen risked peeking her eyes open. They were in the sanctuary of the Lincoln College Chapel. Helen quickly slid her eyes shut, but she could almost feel Nikola's accusing glare on her face._

"_You're a sly woman, Helen," he said finally, and she could picture him shaking his head._

_She smiled, but kept her eyes closed. "Just curious to a fault."_

_He merely chuckled and guided her down the main aisle. Carefully, he helped her find the pew and sit down without injury to herself. He leaned close to speak and Helen all at once felt a blush creep up her neck and into her cheeks. She could smell the sweet scent of the foreign oil that kept his wild hair slicked in an acceptable hairstyle. She could feel warm breath brush her cheek as he spoke, tinted with the scent of mint and chocolate._

"_Now, Miss Magnus," he murmured in that wonderfully exotic accent and smooth tonal quality. "You will sit like a good girl until I say so, yes?"_

_She could only nod._

_Without another word, he jogged off. Helen sat with her hands primly in her lap and waited patiently. It was mere moments before the first strains of a song flowed to her ears. In the darkness of her closed eyes, the music seemed to glide around her, echoing off the cathedral walls and enveloping every part of her body in a cocoon of warmth._

_Her lips parted, but no breath escaped or entered; her eyes slid open. From a myriad of pipes, the notes fled from the organ, as if eager to reach their intended target and impress her with their beauty. The sound was wonderfully foreign—unlike anything Helen had heard her entire life in England—but it was soft and breathtaking. Hypnotizingly beautiful._

_Later, after the song was over, she would explain her joy over the song to Nikola in those exact words. And he would give her that mock-flirtatious smirk._

"_Then it has achieved its purpose," he quipped in what she thought had been sarcasm. "For that is exactly how I feel about you. Breathtaking. Hypnotizing. Happy birthday, Miss Helen Magnus."_

_Helen would laugh, thinking her new friend was just being that—a friend._

Now, Helen took a deep breath, pulling herself out of reverie, and walked into the ballroom. The room had much the same qualities of that little cathedral back at Oxford. The music swelled and echoed beautifully against the architecture, seeming to swirl directly to her ears. Helen slipped off her noisy heels and left them on the smooth tile, stepping toward the Serbian's back in her bare feet.

She paused again, ten feet to his left and a bit behind him—at an angle where she could just see his profile, but he likely hadn't noticed her. Her stress faded in waves; it was as if the Cabal didn't exist—and never had. All that existed was the man, the piano, and the music.

For once, there was no arrogance in Nikola's expression. No lecherousness or sneering intelligence. There was mere peace. And love. A love for the music he coaxed from the gleaming black instrument with his long fingers. His body moved subconsciously along with the music and, as the song reached its climax, his eyes closed. Though the song only grew more complex, his fingers never missed a note as he drew it to conclusion like a father drawing his child into an embrace.

He struck the final chord, held it, and then lifted his hands. The silence was so absolute that Helen's soft crying was overly loud. Nikola at once spun on the bench, eyes wide.

"Helen!" he exclaimed, partly in shock at her presence and partly in worry for her tears.

Smoothly, he stood from the seat and was in front of her in a blink.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," she managed, between sniffles. "I just…I don't know. Things just hit me all at once. Memories…regrets…"

Gently, almost hesitantly, Nikola rested his hand on her upper arm. "I'm sorry to remind you, Helen. I didn't think you'd come this way. I actually just needed a moment alone to think and…" he laughed self-deprecatingly, "apparently my subconscious took over."

"What was that song called again?"

Nikola blushed—actually blushed! That dried away any tear Helen had left and replaced it with laughter.

"Go on, say it," she said, half-teasing. "I've forgotten."

"Angel of Oxford," he muttered.

He released her upper arm, but Helen lifted her hand quickly and caught his before he could withdraw completely. He looked down at both of her hands holding one of his and she thought she heard his breathing quicken.

"It still sounds just as lovely," she said, softly.

"Yes, well, I hardly ever practice it, so…" Nikola sniffed dismissively.

Helen knew him well enough to see when he was lying through his teeth, but she let it go.

"Did you know," she said, still not releasing his hand, "that it was that day, all those years ago, sitting in that pew, when I got the idea for the Sanctuary Network?"

Nikola's eyebrows rose. "_I _inspired you for that?"

Helen nodded. "The combination of the music and the cathedral…something clicked. I realized that the abnormals my father studied needed a place to be safe. Just like you and I always found sanctuary in each other's company."

Nikola's gaze—which had been flitting anywhere but at her eyes—now leveled. She stared back into the steely blue and was sure now that she wasn't imagining the emotion there.

"Nikola," she said, voice near a whisper. "I want you to tell me the truth."

He merely nodded.

"Last year. When we were in those catacombs under Rome. You said you loved me. Did you mean it?"

Nikola swallowed. "Would it mean anything if I did?"

In answer, Helen stepped a bit closer, still holding his hand in both of hers. Now the tangle of fingers was pressed between their chests—the only barrier left.

"You even loved me back in Oxford, didn't you?" she breathed in realization. "That's why you and John were enemies from the start."

Nikola snorted. "John and I were never friends because he was a homicidal bastard. Not that you wouldn't be worth fighting over, Helen. I mean, of course that would have been a major reason—had it been a reason at all. Of course."

"Of course," Helen repeated. But she was grinning now.

Nikola Tesla was nervous and he was scrambling for a scrap of his usual ego to stand on. He wasn't used to floating free in a sea of emotion like that and it made him ramble and lick his lips. Helen smiled deviously.

"You know, you're terribly cute when you're speechless," she said.

Because she'd abandoned her usual high-heeled shoes, she actually had to lift her heels from the ground slightly to bring their faces closer.

"Helen—"

Nikola halted her with his voice alone. Dropping back to flat feet, she searched his eyes. She could see pure emotion crackling like electricity. Love, desire, passion, relief, and…worry?

"Don't play with my heart, Helen," he whispered to her face, inches away from his own. "My newly-mortal self couldn't take it."

"What do you mean?" she whispered back.

"Druitt." Nikola bit off the name like he was tasting a lemon peel. "Don't tease me with this and then go straight back to him again. I'd rather love you for the rest of my life and never have you so much as touch me again, than to have to share you."

And there it was. The choice of the century—literally—was laid out plainly before her. Leave it to Nikola to bluntly bring things out in the open. But luckily, Helen had been thinking about this particular dilemma for a good year now—actually ever since Nikola's might-be-genuine declaration of love.

In her silence, Nikola had lowered his hand, dropping it out of her grasp. However, their faces were still a breath apart and Helen felt suddenly glad that they were no longer at Oxford where a lady must always be demure. Slowly, she reached up and gently traced her finger across Nikola's lower lip before cupping the side of his face with one hand. Then, making sure he didn't look away from her eyes, she spoke clearly and concisely.

"I waited over a hundred years for those three words to leave your lips in seriousness, Nikola," she said softly. "Then, when they actually did, I'd grown so hard-hearted, I didn't believe it. But now…" She smiled deviously. "You have me, Nikola. My heart, my mind, and my soul. Once again captivated."

His lips parted as his breath hitched at the eloquent response. Unable to fight temptation any longer, Helen closed the gap and pressed her mouth to those stunned lips. At once, his hands came up, cradling her head gently, his pianist fingers tangling in her thick curls. The kiss quickly escalated when both opened their mouths in eagerness at the same time.

And for the first time there was no obstacle—mental, emotional, or physical—to keep them from each other. Helen did not think of Druitt once, not even as a passing flitter of an image. And Nikola, assured of his love being reciprocated, finally dropped the icy shield he'd carried for so long. Hypothetically, there was nothing keeping them from spending the night in the unused ballroom.

"Hey, Will's got so—_WHOA!_"

That is, except for Henry.

Helen pulled her lips apart from Nikola's with an audible pop and looked over at her computer technician. The werewolf seemed to have hurled himself backward the instant he'd walked inside, resulting in him half-hiding behind the cracked door of the ballroom, not quite unwilling to flee completely—probably because he had something to say.

"It's okay, Henry, you can come inside," Helen called.

"Mommy and Daddy won't kiss in front of you again, we promise," Nikola teased.

Henry crept back out, looking both intrigued and stunned to the point of asphyxiation at the same time.

"Now, did you have something to tell me?" Helen asked gently.

"Uh…"

Henry clearly was struggling to remember what it was anyway, but he was distracted by Nikola wiping traces of lipstick off of his lips and refastening the top button on his shirt that had mysteriously come undone. The idea that his prim and proper boss had done that to the smirking genius had the werewolf's brain going in circles of incredulity.

"_Henry_." Helen raised her voice slightly. "What is the problem?"

"Will's got something you need to see," Henry said finally.

"Very well." Helen started forward.

"Actually, he asked for Tesla," Henry interjected. "Not that you can't come, too, doc, but apparently—"

"_Me_?" Nikola made a face. "What in heaven's name could come out of Druitt's mouth that has anything to do with me?"

Henry shrugged. "I haven't seen it yet. Will taped the whole thing and he's waiting for you both in Magnus's office."

Nikola and Helen glanced at one another, confused. Henry anxiety seemed to escalate tangibly, as if he was afraid they might try to jump each other again right there in front of him.

"Alright, this way!" he called in his nervous high pitch.

Nikola smirked, but Helen grabbed his hand and dragged him from the room after her. She bypassed her strappy heels, instead marching after her techie in her bare feet. It took them a few moments to reach her office and when they entered, Will and Kate looked up from the computer screen.

Nikola didn't miss the way Henry tensed at the two young people's closeness.

"This is some freaky stuff, doc," Kate said, shaking her head. "Like _Ghost Hunters _freaky."

Helen swept around to the proper side of her desk and Will and Kate immediately eased out of her way. Nikola strolled over a bit more languidly and leaned against the desk's edge—clearly ready to be thoroughly unimpressed.

In the freeze frame image on the screen, Druitt still lay on the floor and Will sat next to him.

"I've got the session cued up to just before I broke through," Will explained. "Go ahead and start it when you're ready."

Helen tapped the spacebar sharply and the images started playing.

"_Now _tell me what you see," Will said in the recording, clearly tired.

There were several heartbeats of silence.

Then Druitt's eyes snapped wide open, impossibly wide, and he began speaking in a voice that was not only not his own language, but not even his own _voice_.

"Nikola!" he cried. "Nikola, Nikola! _Vratiti se dom, moj sin. Vratiti se dom, _Nikola! _Vratiti se dom! __Moj sin! Moj sin!_"

Will rapped the spacebar to halt the frightening image. "He kept screaming variations of that phrase over and over for three minutes before we could get him sedated."

"And where is he now?" Helen asked.

"Back in isolation," Will said. "Just to be safe."

Helen nodded her approval and looked over sharply when Nikola literally collapsed into the nearest chair. Every muscle seemed to have gone slack in absolute astonishment. His jaw hung loose and his eyes were wide and unblinking. His arms hung off of the chair and he slouched. It was like he'd melted and frozen at the same time.

"What is that—Slavic?" Henry asked, frowning.

"It's Serbian," Helen said. "It means—"

"'Come home, my son'," Nikola whispered breathlessly. "'Come home, Nikola. Come home. My son. My son.'"

The rest of the group was silent, staring at Tesla. Slowly, his face unfroze in order to crease into a thoughtful frown. Still breathless, he spoke to himself.

"But that's impossible…"

"Why?" Will piped up.

Nikola finally looked up, scanning all of their faces until he arrived on the one who had spoken. "Because," he said, clearly struggling to control his emotions. "The voice that just spoke perfect Serbian from Druitt's mouth was the voice of my father, Milutin Tesla. And he's been dead for a hundred and thirty years."

TBC


	9. Chapter Nine: Mirror, Mirror

**I'm just going to give up on apologizing for my lateness. Procrastination = long-delayed updates = fact of my existence. One last time and forever more: I'm very sorry. Oh, and in addition to the customary spoilers for "Sleepers" in this ongoing fic, there's also a reference to the end of "Veritas" in this chapter. Guess what, readers? This is the second to last chapter. *cries briefly in the arms of personal Nikola clone***

***gasp!* I've forgotten a witty disclaimer for the last few chapters! Please don't sue me!**

**P.S. If the Latin scientific name I use sounds made-up, that's because it is. Complete BS. ^_^**

* * *

**_Chapter 9 – Mirror, Mirror_**

* * *

"_But that's impossible…"_

"_Why?" Will piped up._

_Nikola finally looked up, scanning all of their faces until he arrived on the one who had spoken. "Because," he said, clearly struggling to control his emotions. "The voice that just spoke perfect Serbian from Druitt's mouth was the voice of my father, Milutin Tesla. And he's been dead for a hundred and thirty years."_

Silence greeted this statement—a silence so thick that they could hear the grandfather clock ticking across the room. Everyone stared at Tesla—not in incredulity, but rather in simple, confused shock. Their brains—even Helen's—refused to compute what he'd told them. It _was _impossible. Dead people did _not _speak through living people.

"Told you," Kate said finally. "_Ghost Hunters._ Baldy is possessed."

Helen ignored Kate to face her protégé. "Will. Is there any psychological reason for John's…reaction?"

Will shook his head with a wide-eyed shrug. "In the normal world? No. But I've given up trying to apply my psych education to anything but the most general topics of what goes on in here."

"It's got to be the Cabal," Henry said, shaking his head.

"I agree," Helen said with a nod. "No one else could do something this morbid and unnatural."

"The question is," Kate put in, "where are they hiding?"

"'_Vratiti se dom_, _moj sin,_'" Nikola whispered, still slouched in the armchair.

"'Come home, my son,'" Helen repeated. "But you've lived countless places, Nikola. New York, Colorado, London, Paris, Gospić, Prague …"

Nikola shook his head. "But only oncedid my father ever say those exact words. '_Vratiti se dom, moj sin. Vratiti se dom, _Nikola! _Vratiti se dom! __Moj sin! Moj sin!_' I remember that moment, Helen, clear as day. It's like they plugged a recording from my memory into Druitt's brain."

Will raised his eyebrows. "Is that even _possible_?"

"Do I _look_ like I have answers, protégé?" Nikola snapped.

"When, Nikola," Helen drew him back. "When did your father say that to you?"

Nikola's jaw tensed. He was trying to control his emotions again, she could tell. His mastery over feelings was admirable, but unhealthy.

"Nikola, please tell me," she soothed, touching his shoulder in such a gentle way that none of the others could miss it. But while Kate and Will were stunned by the show of affection, Henry looked ready to make a grand escape any second.

Nikola took a breath and began speaking casually, as if he were talking about an experiment he'd concluded. "I was seven. I had run away from home because, ah…because my brother had…" he frowned, mastered a swell of emotion and went on, "my brother had just died. I ran so hard and so fast that I made it to a deserted chapel at nightfall and couldn't make my way back down the mountain in the dark. I spent the night curled up at the altar among leaves and insects. It was an awful experience. However, the next day, I woke to my father's nearly-hoarse voice yelling for me.

"He yelled my name three times before I responded. When I refused to come out, racked by guilt, he pleaded with me. I remember it distinctly because it was the first time I heard my father weep like that. He sobbed out those exact words Druitt just said in that exact order at that exact number of repetition. It's no coincidence."

"Why were you feeling guilty?" Kate asked, somewhat tactlessly.

But Nikola was over 150 and tougher than his slender frame appeared. He looked her square in her dark eyes. "Because I caused his death, my dear Kate."

Kate shut her mouth in shock, unnerved by the cold, steel-blue gaze locked onto her eyes. Finally, she looked away and Will stepped in.

"And at that time, home was…?"

"Smiljan," Nikola replied. "In Lika-Senj, Croatia."

*

It took mere hours for the team to prepare.

It took longer to decide who was going.

John was an obvious choice, since he could get them there and back with the least amount of injury. After a personal check from Helen, the Ripper was deemed sane once more. It seemed that once he was released from the hypnosis, he was back to normal with no memory of the strange occurrence.

Helen, of course, would be going. There was no argument from anyone.

Nikola stood tall, crossed his arms, and refused to move—literally—until he was granted a place on the mission. It was a position that Helen very reluctantly awarded him. After all, this could very well be a trap, set by the Cabal and her mind was left going in panicked circles at the thought of Cabal super-abnormals gutting Nikola in front of her. It was only after the others had scattered to other duties and her Serbian love held her tightly that the images from her nightmares fled completely.

Will would be back-up. Or, as Nikola quipped with a grin: "The guy we leave behind if things get messy."

Moments before they were to meet in the main hub for departure, Helen was nearly assaulted by an extremely excited Henry when she walked past his lab.

"Magnus!" he crowed. "I've got it! I figured it out!"

Blinking in shock, Helen stared at him blankly. "Figured what out?"

"Why you're having nightmares and flashbacks suddenly!" With a flourish, he spun his tablet around for her to see. An image of a brain scan—hers—filled the screen; a small red square bounded a tiny area in the center. "Meet the docile relative of the Ozone Beetle," Henry proclaimed. "You know, the one you stuck in your head to make you go insane and nearly gave us all aneurisms? This is its cousin, official delegation: Rexolavinus Reminarius." Then he grinned widely. "I call him Rex."

"That's just a glitch, Henry," Helen said calmly, after giving the fuzzy dot a due inspection. "A smudge on the scan."

Henry shook his head as he turned the tablet back to himself, tapping around a bit. "I thought so, too. But then I was doing inventory earlier today." He turned the screen back to her. "We got a bunch of transfers from the London Sanctuary, but I noticed there was one more electronic tag than there were containers. I did some exploring and found this empty, still-sealed container behind some other crates."

He held out a customary containment unit for microscopic creatures. Helen took it and inspected it mostly to humor her excited techie. However, she was surprised to see that he was right. Sure enough, the container was still sealed and the readout showed that it had not been opened or tampered with in any way. And yet, the tiny screen also reported that there was nothing inside.

"Rexolavinus Reminarius was supposed to be in here?" Helen confirmed.

Henry nodded. "Apparently, he can sort of phase through solid objects—something that was _not _mentioned in his data file."

With her free hand, Helen reached up to touch her head lightly. "That would explain how he—_it_ would have been able to infiltrate my skull without mark or pain."

Henry nodded enthusiastically. "Exactly!"

Helen handed back the containment unit and fixed Henry in a stare. "So, how does Rexolav—" She cut herself off at Henry's puppy-dog look and sighed deeply. A slight smile crossed her lips. "How does _Rex_…go about giving me nightmares?"

Henry grinned, thrilled out of his mind. "You're gonna love this, doc. So, this species has all the qualities of a harmless parasite—oxymoron, I know. But, see, Rex buries himself between the amygdalae, which—as you know—controls both memory _and _emotional reactions. And if you mix both of those responses, _boom_—nightmare."

"You said he was parasitic in nature," Helen prodded.

"Right. Rex feeds on the minimal electrical pulses of the brain to such a small degree that you would have never felt a thing and your brain would take no damage."

Helen frowned. "Why was he shipped here in the first place?"

"Uh, from what I can understand…" Henry spoke as he flipped through files on his tablet, "Declan only got partway into experiments before he decided to pass it off to someone smarter than him. The results he's got so far point to Rex as the first step in the evolution of a psychic being."

"Psychic," Helen repeated. She frowned. "As in predicting the future?"

Henry shrugged. "Apparently, in controlled environments Rex has predicted imminent danger to himself. Never been inside someone's head yet, though. Who knows, maybe he can predict danger for you and communicates his…_visions_ in the form of dreams."

Helen tried to ignore how unnerving that idea was. Flashes of Nikola screaming and blood splattering on cold stone raced through her mind. Fighting off the nightmares on her own, Helen unconsciously hugged her arms around her, wishing her love was there to banish them completely.

"But it isn't harmful?" she asked, just to confirm.

"Declan saw no dangerous qualities and Rex has probably been in your head for weeks now without any harm—well…'cept for…y'know…the viciously realistic nightmares…"

"Can it be removed?"

Henry shook his head, abruptly solemn. "The amgdalae are like the exact center of the human head. The only way Rex'll ever come out is if you can somehow ask him to."

Helen sighed. "Which will take extensive meditation. Very well. In your opinion, Henry, is it safe for me to go on this mission?"

"Y-you're asking _me_?"

Helen smiled. "A doctor should never diagnose herself."

"Well, uh…" Henry drew himself up, taking the moment very seriously. "Yeah. You'll be fine."

Helen squeezed the techie's shoulder. "Thank you, Henry."

As she walked away, he nodded with lips pressed in a proud smile. "You got it, boss!"

*_Smiljan, Lika-Senj, Croatia*_

Helen hadn't told anyone what Henry had informed her of. It would only lead to worry, wasted time, and a lot of meaningless talk. As long as she was well, they needn't know everything. Especially not Nikola. The last thing his fragile ego needed was to be worried that all of her most recent actions were being affected by a parasite. _Especially _after the beautiful moment in the ballroom.

However, she could not shake the worry about the possible psychic abilities of Rex. Was the docile abnormal trying to warn her of something? If it was, the Ozone Beetle seemed preferable by comparison. Paranoia—even insanity—she could deal with. But if even one of those nightmares ever came true…

A familiar smooth voice thrummed at her ear, dispelling her bloody visions as per usual. "You seem distracted, Helen." She turned her head slightly to see Nikola very close at her side. He smirked. "Possibly thinking about that interrupted moment we had?"

Helen managed to keep herself from blushing and set her jaw. "Not now, Nikola," she said firmly. "It's not the time or the place."

"Ohw," he scoffed. He laid both hands over his heart, but he was grinning. "My heart breaks, my love."

Just then, Will and John arrived.

"Everyone ready?" Will asked, almost cheerfully.

The three left of the Five simply nodded. Nikola had already pointed out the town on a map for Druitt. Initially, the teleporting serial killer had been nervous about transporting somewhere he'd never been, but after some healthy taunting from Nikola, Druitt leaped to the location and jumped back without harm. Now he had a proud, imperious smirk on his face and was more than ready to transport the others.

Without another word, Druitt grabbed Will and Nikola by the backs of their necks, yanking them both into a torn open hole in space-time. In the few breaths she had alone, Helen drew a sudden parallel to when they'd first gone after Ashley. They'd even departed in the same order.

_Ashley's blood-red eyes were sparkling with an evil joy as she screamed, long and loud. Nikola fended her off for barely three seconds before she overpowered the mortal ex-vampire. Knocked onto his back, Nikola didn't give the super-abnormal the satisfaction of seeing his fear as she raised her claws above her head, ready to plunge them straight through his face—_

Thankfully, John reappeared then, grabbed Helen's arm, and ripped her out of her current location. The instant they rematerialized, Helen located Nikola and grabbed him before the nightmare could progress any further. On pure reaction, Nikola caught her stumbling hug and held her tight.

"Helen, what's wrong?" John asked, worriedly.

"Magnus?" came Will's customary question into her well-being.

"I'm fine now," Helen mumbled into Nikola's chest. She straightened, cleared her throat, and released the Serbian genius, but didn't go too far. Just in case.

"What was that all about?" Nikola muttered.

"I had one of the nightmares," Helen said, calmly. "I was simply utilizing my temporary solution."

"I feel so used," Nikola muttered, feigning hurt.

John smirked.

But Will, as a psychologist, had other concerns. "You had one while you were _awake_?"

Helen gave Will her best no-nonsense stare. "We will discuss it later, William."

Nikola looked at Will and raised his eyebrows as Helen marched past them all to take in their surroundings.

"Ooh, '_William_'," Nikola whispered. "She is _not _happy with you, my friend."

"Shut up, Tesla," Will muttered, following meekly after Helen. "Just cos you're suddenly on her good side doesn't mean you've got to be a brat about it."

Nikola frowned as he followed Will, but John just laughed as he brought up the rear. "Actually, for Nikola, that's _exactly _what it means."

*

The cathedral itself was beautiful. It was a one-room chapel, large enough to hold less than a hundred people. The stonework on the outside looked like it had been carved by hand by a master stonemason centuries ago. Dark green ivy covered the gray stone and the entire clearing held a soft silence that compelled them all to participate in the quiet.

As they walked for the sealed door, Nikola explained that the church was only used for special occasions since it was so far into the mountains.

Helen hardly paid attention though. All she could think about was a dark-headed, blue-eyed waif running through the dry leaves up to the old oak door. All at once, the thoughts coalesced into a memory that was most certainly not hers. Though she was fully awake and alert, the image of a scrawny child raced just in front of her and she could hear his sobs. Frozen, she watched as the child practically tackled the door, shoving it open after several seconds of pushing. His screams in Serbian were too emotion-stricken for her to completely translate, but the one phrase she did compute caused a chill to race over her skin.

"_Ja sam žalostan, Dane! JA SAM ŽALOSTAN!"_

Helen forced Rex out of the vivid memory. And Rex was the only explanation. For some reason the harmless abnormal in her head was becoming more insistent and more powerful. How had Rex even accessed Nikola's memories? Helen's eagerness to discover more about the new breed was overridden by abrupt concern for Nikola.

The grown-up version of that hysterical child was rambling on about the cathedral as he gestured to John to get the door open. Helen didn't even notice Druitt's petitioning glance at her and then his grumbling obedience to Nikola when he saw that she was preoccupied.

Moving on automatic, Helen pulled out her pistol, readying for entrance into a possible Cabal nest. However, her mind was disengaged, absolutely stunned that the confident, self-centered genius before her was once a broken little boy stretched over a cold stone altar, screaming apologies to his dead brother.

Nikola caught her eye with a smirk, but then noticed her pained look and frowned. "What's wrong, Helen?" he asked, taking a step toward her.

She reached out and grabbed his hand. "I'm so sorry about your brother, Nikola."

The Serb glanced down at her hand in slight surprise and then looked back into her eyes with a frown in his.

With a solid shoulder to the rotted wood and a grunt of effort, Druitt knocked the doors in completely. Nikola smiled reassuringly at Helen and lightly kissed the back of her hand before releasing her to take the lead once more.

"Ah, thank you Druitt," he said, snarkily. "You know, you and that Sasquatch butler have a lot in common."

"Hey now, don't insult the Big Guy," Will put in with a grin.

Nikola rewarded the psychologist with a grin and a nod, but Druitt's calm glare nearly had Will wetting himself. Luckily, Helen controlled the situation and herded them all inside after Nikola. And after that point there was no more snark or friendly teasing of the ex-serial killer.

For, standing at the altar with hands folded in a mockery of prayer, was Nikola Tesla.

Except it couldn't be. Helen blinked and glanced to the side to make doubly sure that Nikola was still standing at her shoulder. He was. Terrified that Rex was affecting her vision of reality, Helen leveled her pistol at the imposter. The man stood relaxed, staring back at the group with the exact same grin she'd fallen in love with.

"What the…" Will couldn't even finish the curse.

"Helen…?" Nikola—the real one—murmured. "Any thoughts?"

"I've got nothing," Helen whispered.

"Hello, there!" Fake Nikola called with a jaunty wave. "I suppose all of your tiny little brains are scrambling for answers right about now, hm? Well, except for _you_." He tilted his head at Nikola. "I mean, you're a genius after all."

"You're…" Nikola said softly.

"Oh yes, it's me. I'm you. We're the same. Except technically not because _I _never had a run-in with a Devamper."

So saying, Fake Nikola held up both hands and vamped out spectacularly. Helen didn't miss the way Nikola eyed his mirror image longingly. And for the first time, she didn't blame him. When one was knocked from godhood to Magneto, it was painful to be faced with what you'd once been.

"And I'm not as electrifying," the double said in the layered voice of sanguine vampiris. "Since I had no contact with that bastard Edison."

"You're a clone," Nikola said, coolly, utterly un-panicked.

"Ahhh, so you _are _just as smart as me," the clone said, still grinning. He slipped back into human form. "Of course, you're right. I'm your exact replica. Well, we look the same anyway—most of the time. We've got the same intelligence. But that's about all we have in common. See, I grew up in a matter of months and you've lived 154 long years. And instead of a loving family and four friends at Oxford, I got a team of scientist sons of bitches who hunted vampires in the old days."

"How did the Cabal get a hold of my DNA?" Nikola asked with a frown.

The others stared at him, shocked that he'd figured it out already.

"The Cabal _cloned_ you?" Will exclaimed, incredulously.

"Ding, ding, ding!" Fake Nikola crowed. "Give that man a radio! Yes. When dear little Ashley swiped the Source blood for that bitch, Dana, she also snagged a few strands of hair from the coat you so carelessly left lying out in favor of a lab coat to get friendly with the hot brunette. Hi, by the way. Do you have any idea how much this guy adores you?"

Helen opened her mouth a few times, but it seemed even a copy of Nikola had her speechless.

"She _is _fantastic," the clone said, grinning at Nikola now.

"Go on, I believe you were saying something fascinating about the Cabal," Nikola growled, stepping between Helen and, well, himself.

"Oh, yes, so I was. Well, if the plan to destroy the Sanctuary Network failed, the Cabal's plan B was to grow a baby Tesla from the DNA and inject the fetus with a cocktail of Source blood and hyped-up, super-abnormal growth hormones. Voila! In a matter of months, you've got your own fully-grown vampire genius. More fun than a Chia Pet." He winked. "Did you ever wonder why the Cabal crumbled so easily?"

"You," Nikola said simply.

"Oh, yes! Me! I killed 'em all. Every single one, only a few weeks after word came back that all the super-abnormals were dead. Did you know that I actually watched them destroy your daughter, Miss Magnus? I was only fourteen at the time—well, technically I was a mere three and a half weeks old, but looked fourteen. Regardless, I could tell she was sweet. When she was first in the cell across from mine, she even smiled at me and told me she was gonna get us both out of there. Then I watched them rip away everything that was her and replace it with their own monster. It was then that I started to really hate them. Even when they called me 'the filthy vampire' it didn't bother me as much as watching her die slowly every day."

Helen felt tears pricking her eyes. Even in horrid conditions, this clone had grown up with Nikola's compassion. But unlike her Nikola, this one had full-fledged madness shining from his eyes. Clones were a crime against humanity. By nature, they would have deep psychological issues anyway—not to mention if one was raised by the Cabal.

The original Nikola took another step forward. "How were you able to break Druitt's mind?"

"Simple. I retained all of your memories. See, the Cabal didn't account for the fact that the Source blood makes _everything _superhuman. And come on, Niko. We're the Poet of Electricity, right? How hard is it to figure out which buttons to press in Jack the Ripper's brain?"

"Which explains how you were able to force him to replay one of our—_my _memories while under hypnosis," Nikola said, still so very calm. "And, as such, I have only one question left. Why?"

"Why?" the clone grinned. "_Why_? Ohhw, come _on_, Tesla! _You_! That's why! After I escaped the Cabal, I started thinking. Why—if you and I are exact twins in mind and body—wasn't I seeing _you _do what I was? Why were you trying to be so subtle in taking over the world? Why were your goals of domination all in the name of science and an intellectual golden age of wondrous discovery? Why not just rip all their mortal heads off and get it over with? Long story short, I became obsessed with finding you—my original."

"And you have, now," Nikola said, simply. He spread his arms in question. "Now what?"

Slowly, a truly evil grin crept across the clone's face. At the same lazy speed, his eyes melted black and claws slid from his fingers.

"Well, I've been thinking about that, too," the clone said, in deep, layered tones. "And I thought, 'You know what? There's only room in this world for one Nikola Tesla'." He grinned, baring vicious fangs. "May the best vampire win, Niko!"

Then he was sprinting down the aisle with blurred vampire speed.

"John, retreat!" Helen yelled. "_Retreat!_"

Druitt instantly grabbed the two members of the team closest to him—which were unfortunately Will and Helen. The flames wrapped them up in warm safety, but Helen had eyes only Nikola sliding in front of the dematerializing group, arms stretched wide in a Christ-like pose. The last thing she saw was his clone in a fantastic midair leap, mere feet away, claws extended for the defenseless mortal.

But then she was being ripped through space, flying between dimensions. Two seconds later, she was standing, disoriented, in her office.

Immediately, she punched John's arm. "Go back!" she shrieked. "_NOW_!"

Without a word, John vanished. Helen counted her breaths to remain calm—because her heartbeats were too wild.

_One_.

"Magnus—" Will tried to speak, panting.

_Two_.

"Shut up, Will."

_Thr—_

John reappeared. He was easily holding a man across his arms like a doll. At first, Helen's mind refused to recognize Nikola's face. And when she did, she simultaneously experienced wild hope that it was the clone, not the original.

One more breath.

_Four_.

Moving smoothly, John sank to his knees, laying the wounded man on the ground. Helen's eyes reported to her brain that the bloody mess was wearing what remained of the clothes that the real Nikola had been wearing in the church—not the clone's. The man's chest and stomach were slashed to ribbons and his breaths—if he was breathing at all—were too shallow for the eye to see. His skin was pale and a few flecks of bright blood had even splattered up on his still face. His eyes were wide and somehow seemed to stare past the ceiling. His lips were parted.

Helen looked to John and read the slightest hint of regret there. Slowly, he shook his head in response to her unspoken question, lips drawn thin. Helen inhaled sharply after not breathing for several seconds.

_Five_.

The Five.

And with that, it clicked. It wasn't just a man. That was Nikola Tesla lying there. That was another of the Five lying shredded on her carpet.

A sob hitched in her throat, coming on so quickly that she only half-muffled it with her hand. Helen dropped then, as if her legs were suddenly no longer there. Still nearly ten feet from where Nikola lay with John crouched beside him, she clamped both hands over her mouth. Instinctively, she knew that if she removed them, she would scream like a banshee.

And then, all at once, every nightmare she'd ever had came rushing back, flashing through her perfect memory like moments preserved in crystalline glass. Nothing compared to the stark reality. He was _gone_.

The scream came then, and her hands were no match for it. Her fingers retreated from her mouth to dig into her hair, claw-like against her skull, as her mouth opened in an almost inhuman wail of grief.

TBC


	10. Chapter Ten: Don't Die Before I Do

**Fastest update EVAR!**

**Well, my friends, as with all things in this mortal coil, the end has come. Well, sort of. I chopped off the end to put in an epilogue because it was so long. :D But here's the basic resolution of the plot. Please let me know what you think! ^_^**

* * *

_**Chapter 10 – Don't Die Before I Do**_

* * *

Everyone in the room immediately tensed at the horrific wail that came from Helen's mouth. Even John jumped slightly. He'd never heard her create a noise so stricken with pain and emotion. At the end of the scream—which seemed to prolong further than a normal human's lung capacity—Helen's eyes rolled back and she promptly slumped over onto the carpet at Nikola's side, her dark curls spread across the blood-stained Persian rug.

*

"_Hello?"_

_Helen looked around her. She stood in her old home in London. Everything was as exact and real as if John had abruptly teleported her there from her office. She put a hand to her stomach, feeling the sudden urge to vomit for the first time in decades as she remembered the sight that lay in that office. _

_In that action, she glanced down at herself and was surprised to see that she was wearing a dress from her days before the Source. A ringlet of gold fell into her field of vision and she reached up to feel the faintly familiar texture of her tight curls from those days. What was going on?_

"_Hello?"_

_The voice came again. Helen hefted the heavy skirts—unused to the weight after a century of not wearing them—and stepped into the sitting area. There, a little girl was looking around as if searching. She was a cute little thing with pigtails and a modern-day sundress. She looked terribly out of place in the setting._

"_Ah, you're here!" the girl exclaimed as if simultaneously relieved and excited. "Oh, I'm so happy to finally see you!"_

"_I—" Helen was overwhelmed. "I'm sorry—who are you and where am I?"_

_The little girl smiled. "The wolfman calls me Rex."_

"_You're Rex?" Helen exclaimed. "Then I must be…"_

_She looked around the realistic old house._

"_You're inside a memory," Rex confirmed. "I've been building this construct in your mind ever since I first began feeling your future. Now, it is finished just in time and we can talk face to face."_

"_Hold on," Helen lifted her hands. "You can _feel _my future?"_

_Rex smiled and sighed as if she were an old woman explaining life to a child. "I do not know how to accurately describe my ability to you. I do not so much _see _the future as I am in tune with the ebb and flow of time. Thus I am very connected to the past. Memory. Regrets. This power simply…extends into the hereafter. An unintentional bleeding over as it were."_

"_That's incredible," Helen gushed. "There's so much we can learn from you!"_

_Rex smiled that too-wise smile for a child's face and seated herself on an armchair. "There will be time enough to discuss whether meddling with present and future is wise. But for now, I have something more urgent to talk to you about."_

_Helen quickly sat as well. The corset was killing her. It was all so realistic. "Those nightmares," she realized softly. "You were trying to communicate with me then, weren't you?"_

_Rex shook her head sadly. "Unfortunately I did not realize how different our methods of communication were. I apologize if I've caused you much pain—but I could not help it. As I touch on memory and emotion in your mind, my feelings of what is to come are expelled from me without my consent. It is like the process of breathing to you."_

"_Then, if you realized you were hurting me, why didn't you simply leave?" Helen asked, somewhat hurt._

"_Because." Rex leveled those ancient eyes on Helen. "Because I am an empathetic creature by nature. I could not, in good conscience, leave you without imparting my knowledge of what is to come. And so I tried. I feared I would be too late."_

_All at once, the flashes of image flipped through Helen's mind again. But since she was technically sitting inside her mind anyway, the horrific scenes of Nikola's multiple, imagined deaths slid through the room itself, passing by Rex and Helen like a freight train. The little girl/parasite ignored the chaotic screams of blood, though, still staring at Helen._

"_I saw this. I felt this. I tried to tell you, but I could not until now."_

_Helen's gaze was glued on the horrors flying past her and abruptly felt tears running down her face. She briefly wondered if that was part of the construct in her mind or if her body was actually producing tears. Her voice, when she gathered the strength to speak, was broken and whispery._

"_I thank you, Rex. But you were too late. Nikola is dead."_

_Rex smiled that compassionate smile again. "Not yet."_

_Helen looked up sharply. The little girl's eyes welled with terribly strong empathetic tears and she abruptly hopped off the armchair and rushed to Helen, grabbing both of the doctor's hands in hers. "__His heart may have stopped, but he is not gone, Helen."_

"_But…I…" _

_Helen's mind spun. And, again, since she sat inside her own mind, the room's edges darkened. Rex gripped Helen's hands tighter and the images from her nightmares flew through the room even faster until they blurred and all Helen could see was washed-out crimson red._

"_The blood, Helen," Rex said. She was gripping Helen's fingers so tightly, the immortal briefly wondered if it were possible to break bones in a construct. The parasite gasped. "They are trying to wake you. You must go back. And hurry! There is very little time. The blood Helen. Remember the—"_

_Then the room exploded in a brilliant flash of red._

*

Helen sucked in a huge breath and jolted upright. Henry, Will, Kate, and John all hovered over her with identical looks of fear and worry. Without a word to assuage their concern, Helen shoved to her feet and grabbed John by the arm, dragging him over to Nikola's body. There, she pointed down, eyes ablaze. She could barely speak, but she forced the words out anyway.

"Pick him up."

"Helen," John tried to reason with her, as if she were an escaped lunatic. "I'm sorry, but he's…"

"He's not gone!" Helen yelled. "Now do as I say, or I swear I will raise the EM shield and rip you to pieces. _Now_. PICK. HIM. UP."

Without another noise, John obeyed. Helen grabbed hold of the Ripper's leather jacket and spoke one word.

"Infirmary."

And they were gone in a burst of red flame.

They reappeared in the middle of the infirmary and Helen was glad to see that procedure had been followed to the letter. Bigfoot stood at the ready for incoming wounded, as he did during every mission where he wasn't needed in the field. Even on his hirsute features, the surprise was evident when he saw the threesome arrive.

"On a gurney," Helen ordered.

This time, John did not argue, hesitate, or try to dissuade her. Helen met Bigfoot halfway in his crossing of the room and began giving orders.

"I want him in cryogenics _now_."

Used to stressful situations, Bigfoot didn't even waste time with a nod. He grabbed the end of the gurney that Nikola was sprawled on and fled to the stasis room with long, loping strides. Helen caught a glimpse of the red-smeared white sheets and Nikola's mussed hair before they were gone.

"Helen, this isn't healthy," John tried yet again. "And quite frankly, it is a sign of a disturbed mind."

Helen took three long steps and was inches away from the man, her expression the most threatening it had been since she'd faced down a modern-day Medusa and lived.

"Don't you _dare _tell me what disturbed is, _Jack_."

The hurt on Druitt's face barely moved an atom in her heart as Nikola's nickname for the Ripper rolled off her tongue.

"Now. Office."

She grabbed his arm again and stared straight ahead. Druitt sighed, but obeyed.

Henry, Will, and Kate jumped with noticeable astonishment when they reappeared. Helen ignored their worry and pushed past them all. Henry actually fell over from the force of her shove, but Kate grabbed his arm before he could hit the floor.

"Magnus? What the hell's going on?" Will exclaimed.

Helen paid him not the slightest heed. She sprinted right to the wall and yanked a ceremonial katana from its hanging. As the others stared, Helen expertly slid the blade a few inches out of its scabbard and flicked her thumb across the edge.

"Perfect sharpness," she muttered to herself.

"Doc, come on, you're scaring us," Henry pleaded.

Helen looked up at the werewolf and her heart surged at the look on his face. It was the look of a child watching his mother die in a hospital bed. She squashed that compassion quickly. She had to be quick, Rex had said. Nikola didn't have a lot of time—even cryogenics would only slow it down.

"The brain survives three to four minutes after the heart stops beating," she said, simply, snapping the katana back into its sheath and striding back to them. "With our level of stasis technology, I believe I can extend that to barely ten minutes. Any further explanation will have to wait until we return."

"Return?" Kate managed.

Helen shoved the katana at Druitt and he closed his fingers around it on reflex.

"Return from where?" Will clarified.

"We need the clone's blood," Helen said simply. She grabbed Druitt's arm again. "Let's go."

"What, that's it?" Druitt snapped, shrugging out of her grip. "You don't have a plan at all?"

"The plan is, you will decapitate him," Helen said, coldly. "It's the only way to kill a vampire short of a nuclear bomb blast. One clean strike. It has to be in one blow or he will regenerate."

"Hence the katana—one of the sharpest blades in existence even today," John murmured, cradling the weapon in the crook of his arm as if it were a child. "But why?"

"You're much better with a blade than me," Helen said. "And besides, I could never kill something that looks and behaves exactly like Nikola."

"And you think I can?" Druitt snapped.

Helen grabbed the front of his jacket and yanked him close. "I know full well that you are a killer, John, and as we are no longer in a relationship, you have no need to continue to hide it from me as if I am an ignorant girl. And secondly, I am also aware of your jealousy of Nikola."

"Jealousy?" John scoffed on a laugh.

"Because he's smarter, wittier, funnier, more intelligent. Because at every party, he had every girl's eye and they would barely look at you once. And it wasn't because he was better looking, but because he had an innocent fascination with everything around him. Because, even as a vampire, he was more alive than you'll ever be. Because, as of recently, I've finally given up on you and admitted that I love him. And because I know that you would enjoy brutally murdering him. Denying it is a waste of my time and Nikola's."

After a short pause, Druitt spoke softly. "How am I to sneak up on a vampire? Even my teleportation is no match for vampiric reflexes—I've tried it before and I have the scars to prove it."

"It will be enough if the clone is distracted," Helen said impatiently. "Drop me off at the cathedral and then get to higher ground. Watch and wait for the right moment, teleport, and deliver the kill blow."

"How is any of this going to help Tesla?" Will cut in.

"It's all about the blood," Helen murmured. When the others only stared, she felt rage boil up again. How could they be so unaffected and slow-moving at a time like this?

"Wait!" Will cried when she reached for Druitt's arm again.

"Speak quickly, Will," Helen said lowly.

Will took a few steps closer, his soulful eyes intense. "Magnus…are you _sure_?"

"Beyond a shadow of a doubt."

Will nodded, eyebrows frowning. "Okay. I just don't want this to turn into a repeat of what happened right after Ashley…" Will trailed off. Helen was silent, so he took a breath and dropped the bomb. "You've gotta learn to—"

"To what, Will? Say it." When he continued to waffle, she snapped. "_Say it_!"

"To let go," he finished softly.

"That's the problem," Helen growled. "I've 'let go' of too many dear friends in my life and for _once_, I refuse to be the one who continues on _alone_!" She grabbed Druitt's arm firmly. "Now. Let's _go_."

With another sigh, Jack the Ripper slung the katana onto his back and jumped.

*

As planned, John deposited Helen in the clearing that the old, deserted cathedral sat in and then vanished once more. For a moment, Helen was left alone in the peaceful forest. For a moment, she even thought she heard pigeons cooing. They sounded sad.

Then, the clone appeared from the inside the little chapel. The exact replica of Nikola strolled right up to her with the exact same smirk, wiping his hands with his handkerchief in the exact same delicate way.

Then Helen realized he was wiping blood from his fingers. Her Nikola's blood.

She automatically tensed, but forced herself to calm. With the practice of a century and a half, she put on a realistic sultry smile, eyeing him as he walked up.

"Helen Magnus," the clone purred. "Kiss me and I'll save your life. Whoops. Not my line. I get so flustered around you."

He eyed her lips and Helen fought the urge to punch him. _How dare he act like Nikola? How dare he even pretend that he is the original and flirt with me?_ But the smile stayed on. "I could say the same," she murmured.

"Oh, really?" His eyebrows climbed.

Licking her lips, Helen stepped forward so that their bodies brushed together. She laid her palms on his chest and slid them up and around his neck.

"I miss this version of Nikola," she said, low and seductive. "Now, he's just a pathetic waste of time to drag around. He can't keep up. And he's _aging_." She rolled her eyes with a scoff. "But you…" She trailed one finger down the side of his face. "You're _perfect_."

That arrogant smirk she found so devilishly cute seemed wrong on his face. It just wasn't the real Nikola. There was something off in everything he did, in every word and every motion. She realized it was because he was well and truly mad—birthed into insanity by his very existence.

"Well, I can't say I blame you," he murmured, eyes gliding to her lips.

"I came back for you," she whispered. "I want to be with you. I don't care about the Sanctuary Network or Druitt or anything. I just want you to be mine."

Her heart hurt. She knew that every word was like the purest drug to the clone. She knew that what she was saying was everything that both the real Nikola and his clone wanted to hear. She was feeding him lies. But it wasn't really him. It was just a cheap copy—another Cabal monster.

In an instant, their lips were pressed together.

The next instant, she heard the telltale pop of dimensions ripping apart.

The final instant, she ducked sharply, ripping away from the clone as a perfectly-sharpened blade sliced the air itself.

The clone's head hit the grass, followed shortly by the thump of his body. Despite being the toughest woman on the planet, Helen couldn't watch. Fighting vomit and forcing herself to not see the headless neck, she grabbed the clone's arm and stabbed a syringe into it. She had to move quickly before the blood congealed in his veins. Once the syringe was full to the brim, Helen leaped to her feet and grabbed John in a full-out hug.

"Go!" she cried.

They reappeared in the infirmary and Helen took off for the cryo-room. Druitt stood where he'd landed, still holding the blood-smeared katana, and watched her run away. A faint smile twitched his lips. It was a smile of pain and loss, but also one of hope for her. The result was a regretful, bittersweet expression. She was lost to him now—he saw that at last. But at the same time, he had never seen her so passionate in any of her years with him.

"She really loves him," he whispered to himself.

The infirmary was empty and no one else heard him speak, but something about hearing the words aloud made it sink in. Still with that sad smile, John opened his hand, letting the bloody katana clatter to the concrete floor. He turned and glanced around the peacefully sterile room, fighting an unexpected surge of tears.

He'd gotten closure of sorts. Nikola's clone's death had felt good—there was no denying it. Yes, he could relax a bit more now. Who knew killing his rival could be so therapeutic? With one last glance over his shoulder, John sighed. He would come back someday—probably when they needed him most—but for now, his part was done and all he wanted to do was buy a stiff drink and dream that Nikola Tesla really was dead.

There was a flash of smoky red flame in the all-white room and then silence.

*

After administering Nikola's own blood to him, Helen simply stood next to him for a moment. She knew what she had to do next. For the second generation Source blood to take effect, Nikola had to be out of stasis.

_But what if I'm wrong?_ Her mind panicked. _If it doesn't work, he'll die. Really die._

She stared down at his pale face, studying every line of his features as if she would never see them again. Bigfoot had cleaned away the blood from the lacerations on his chest and bandaged them, but the blood was soaking through. His eyes were closed and his hair was beyond messy. A ventilating tube was forced down his throat and a menagerie of wires trailed from various machines to his lean body. All of this, plus the fact that he was restrained to the gurney in case he became violent, nearly made Helen burst into tears again.

She knew him well. She knew he would rather die instantly than stretch out a vegetable life for a few extra minutes.

And so, with tears flowing, she nodded sharply to Bigfoot. The sasquatch flicked the stasis off and the pod pulled up and away from the gurney. Helen only realized she'd been holding her breath when the heart monitor beeped faintly and she let it all out in a relieved sigh.

He was alive. Already, the Source blood had jump-started his heart.

Studying her with eyes that knew her possibly almost as well as the others of the Five, Bigfoot grunted softly to get her attention. "I will leave you alone."

"Thank you," she whispered.

He merely nodded with another hitching grunt and moved toward the door. He stopped there and turned. "What shall I tell the others?"

Helen didn't turn to face him. She remained staring at Nikola's face. "Tell them to pray."

*

The minute Bigfoot exited the sealed-off room, he was almost physically assaulted.

"How is she?" Will said. "And him. Both of them. How are they?" The usually coherent psychologist was clearly rattled.

"Dr. Magnus has administered Tesla's own blood to him," Bigfoot reported in his low growl of a voice. "She removed him from stasis and his heart has restarted on its own, with assistance from the blood."

"Meaning?" Kate pressed.

"Meaning it is working," Bigfoot explained.

"_That's awesome_!" Henry crowed.

Bigfoot looked decidedly less thrilled. "He may be alive, but he is not safe. His own Source-tainted blood is working to 'revamp' him, but apparently the original change was a long and difficult one. Dr. Magnus believes a second transformation will be even worse."

"So," Kate said, leaning against the wall with a weary sigh. "Not out of the woods yet?"

"I'm afraid not," Bigfoot growled, regretfully. "He still has a very high chance of dying."

"And Magnus?" Will pressed. "How is she?"

"Dr. Magnus refuses to leave," Bigfoot said simply.

Will nodded. "Could I talk to her?"

Bigfoot's eyes sparkled threateningly. "Tomorrow. Now, all she requires from you is your prayers and silence."

"I…'m not really the praying type," Kate muttered uncomfortably.

Grim-faced, Henry grabbed her arm and marched off for the chapel in the old house. "You are now, missy."

*

Helen could hardly bring herself to stay. Back at the initial injection over a century ago, she'd been the only one who cared enough to stay with Nikola. The other four had mild transformations. Helen's small seizure was the only thing close to what Nikola's body had undergone. Essentially, the others had simply gained a power and run off to experiment with it. Nikola's entire genetic makeup had changed over the span of twenty-four hours.

And now it was happening again.

This time Helen was more prepared. Back then, she'd sat up with him, fighting his fever and just letting him hear her voice in his comatose state. Then he'd become so violent that she'd had to flee the room and bar it behind her. He'd screamed and cursed and pleaded and sobbed and threatened all sorts of nasty things, but she'd stayed strong. Sitting with her back against the opposite wall, she'd stared at the door, sobbing and praying until it was over.

The second time around, the restraints were titanium weave. Still, the gurney strained as he thrashed, moaning in his sleep. Helen had eventually taken the respirator out as the Source blood continued to make him stronger. But she didn't know if his body could handle this violent transformation a second time. It killed her that her only solution to save him had been to revamp him. She loved him as a mortal. Of course she loved him any way he came, but it had been nice to be equals again.

After a particularly violent spasm, Helen reached out to the unconscious genius, tears streaming from her eyes. He was slicked with sweat of exertion and his eyes shifted agitatedly under his eyelids. He moaned off and on, continuously. Helen laid her cool hand on his fevered arm and leaned forward out of her chair to place a light kiss on his forehead.

"Please hold on, Niko," she breathed into his hair. "Don't make me go on alone." She kissed his unresponsive lips this time, gently. "_Ja ne mogu živjeti bez tebe_."

_I can't live without you._

Then she sat back in her chair, right next to his gurney. She kept her hand on his arm as the next, even more intense seizure racked his slight frame. In that moment, watching his spasm with a tight, tear-stained face, Helen felt as if the pain was actually her own.

It would be a literal fight to survive.

He'd always been there for her. Just simply there. They'd been drawn together in the beginning by some underlying bond. Helen was the only woman at Oxford and Nikola was the only Serbian. They were both shunned from most social groups and were both the object of considerable jealousy because of their intelligence.

He'd been there from the beginning. Just there. She'd watched as he would talk his way into the most dangerous situations, and then finagle his way right out. He had doodled mechanical schematics during history classes and yet somehow passed every test. Even after Nigel and John and James had been brought into Helen's world, Nikola hadn't left.

It was no secret that he hadn't liked any of them and none of the other three had ever tried to hide the fact that they didn't much care for him. But all of the men were linked to Helen and—in her honor—they refused to kill one another. And so, a tentative friendship had formed between them all. The ties that bound them were soaked in jealousy, and yet still, Nikola had been there. He'd met with enemies, just to be silently at her side.

Helen pressed her fingers to her lips to keep from sobbing again as Nikola's back arched terrifically against the restraints. This time a layered growl emerged from his throat, vampiric in noise. There was less and less time between the episodes now and the pain was evident in his animalistic whimpers. Helen knew that pain alone could kill a man if it was intense enough and the transformation had only just begun. And Nikola was not yet fully immortal.

Vision nearly blurred by tears, Helen squeezed his arm tightly, where her hand still rested. She thought of all the people she'd lost. All the friends, family, and lovers. There were so many. And so many times she'd screamed against death and fought so hard to save them, even when she was powerless to do so.

Now, she simply cried, muffling her sobs behind her free hand. Between two jerking breaths, she managed to whisper.

"Don't die."

And thus the night passed. Helen Magnus sat at Nikola Tesla's side and watched as he underwent the worst torture known to man—normal and abnormal alike. She rocked back and forth to quell the screaming sobs that wanted to rip from her as he let out such cries of pain that they broke her heart. She held his hand, even when he gripped it so tight in agony that two of her fingers broke. She crooned nonsense over him in his native tongue, trying so hard to soothe him as his body ripped apart from the inside.

She was there until he finally collapsed into the gurney the next day, drenched in sweat and shivering lightly. With puffy eyes, Helen stared at the lightly beeping heart monitor. Smiling, she released a few laughing tears of pure joy. She looked down at the still-comatose genius and brushed at the half-dried tears on his pale face. He would be unconscious for several hours now, as his body recovered from the process.

But he had survived. That was what made the joy bubble inside of her. Helen tended to her cracked finger bones with ease and a simple shot of morphine. It would only take a day at most to heal completely. She suddenly realized that she hadn't actually slept in nearly a week. Sitting back down, she barely managed to weave the fingers of her unbroken hand in Nikola's now-cold ones before her consciousness fled her, forcing her body to sleep.

But still, she was there at his side, just as he'd always been at hers.

She was simply there.

TBC


	11. Epilogue

**Alright, and this is the very, **_**very **_**end. For reals. ^_^ Big final thank you to everyone who read all the way through and an even bigger one to everyone who reviewed! Also, reviewers get honorary cuddles with my Niko clone. Ouch, that hurt to give out. Once again, your comments were amazing. As a reward, I give you smut! (It's at the very end, but please don't just skip to it. Read the whole thing! Lol)**

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**Epilogue - Love is the Thing With Feathers-Er, Fangs.**

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Nikola opened his eyes and tried to take a heavy breath. Strangely, there seemed to be a weight on his chest. Frowning, he lifted his head and his face softened. Helen was asleep, her head pillowed against the side of his stomach, her mussed locks splayed across his body. He tried to reach up and touch her face, but his hand stopped short. Frowning, he noted that his wrists, ankles and chest were bound to the gurney.

Chuckling lightly, he gave the unconscious Helen a smirk. "I knew you always wanted to tie me up."

She didn't stir though. Apparently, she really was very exhausted. Nikola frowned. He felt different. No, not just different. _Better_. Experimentally, he twitched the part of his brain that had once reacted with his vampire genes. Sure enough, his claws slid out of his right hand and he felt the fangs sharpen in his mouth. He barely restrained a boyish whoop of joy. It felt so good. He felt right again. Strong and invincible. Settling for a happy chuckle, he pulled his vampire nature back inside himself.

Unable to call for assistance without waking Helen, Nikola resigned himself to the happy peacefulness of watching her sleep.

An hour later, Henry walked in. He jumped a bit at Nikola staring back at him—especially because Nikola allowed his fangs and eyes to shine through—but recovered and smiled.

"Is she okay?" Henry whispered.

"Sleeping," Nikola whispered back.

Henry nodded and left the room, returning with Bigfoot. As gently as a bear with its cub, the sasquatch lifted Helen from her seat and laid her on the next gurney over. As the butler arranged his boss in a comfortable position and generally fussed over her, Henry set about unlatching the titanium restraints.

"Tell me everything," Nikola ordered. "What happened after my…mauling, so to speak?"

Henry shrugged, snapping another restraint free. "I don't exactly know. I mean, the doc passed out for a minute and when she woke up, she had this crazy plan to kill your clone and use his blood to revamp you. Looks like it worked."

Finishing with the cuffs, Henry backed away to allow Nikola to stand. The born-again vampire cracked his neck once and flexed his fingers. His regenerative qualities meant that he wasn't even sore after what must have been a horrific night. He remembered the agony like he'd dreamed it. Vaguely terrifying.

Smoothly, he turned around and joined Bigfoot at Helen's side. He studied her with a frown, inspecting for damage. Despite being generally unkempt and exhausted, she was uninjured. Then his eyes fell on her splinted fingers and a hissing growl escaped his lips, though he managed to keep from completely vamping out.

"Who did this? _Druitt_?"

"No, dude," Henry said softly. "You did."

The helpless expression that melted Nikola's features was one rarely seen. Speechless, he looked back down at his love and closed his parted lips, clenching his jaw.

"Hey…Tesla?" Henry ventured presently. "I've gotta tell everyone about this thing the doc's got wrong with her brain, so we can decide what to do about it. I assume you want to come?"

"Give me a moment," Nikola growled.

"Yeah, sure." Henry replied quickly and backed off. "We'll be in her office."

Only when the infirmary door shut again with Bigfoot and Henry on the other side of it did Nikola move. He rested his fingers over the bandages on hers. Then, delicately, as if afraid she would shatter, he took her wounded hand in both of his and lifted it slowly to his lips. Gently, he kissed the bruised digits. At the thought of her biting against the pain, determined to hold his hand through it all, he very nearly let tears fall. But that wouldn't help her now and Henry said there was something urgently wrong in her mind.

Gritting his teeth, Nikola gracefully replaced her hand at her side, brushed a kiss against her forehead, and left the room.

"_Hello?"_

_Helen opened her eyes once again to the slight sepia tone of her memory. She looked down at herself immediately, but this time she was dressed in her usual business-like suit rather than the corset and skirts. The house looked the same as it had when she'd eventually moved out. The furniture was gone and a single candle sat in the sitting room, causing a warm glow from the doorway. There were no other lights in the house._

"_Hello?" came the question again._

_Helen moved toward that light and, sure enough, saw the same little girl standing by the table. Rex had one hand on the table edge and the other behind her back. The sundress and pigtails were still exactly the same._

"_Hello," Helen responded to the parasite's usual call._

_Rex smiled widely. "You did it."_

_Helen nodded. "Thanks to you."_

"_And now what is to happen to me?" _

_Helen took a breath and let it out. She'd been thinking hard on this. "You are free to do as you wish."_

_Rex's delicate eyebrows rose in surprise._

"_What?" Helen smiled. "You didn't read my mind?"_

_Rex smiled patronizingly. "I only know your memories and your emotions. Your thoughts are all your own. As such, I am curious. What led you to this decision? After all, it was my ability that allowed you to save him. Would you not like to study it?"_

_Helen shook her head. "That ability is _yours_. And you freely lent it to me out of kindness. I don't want to make you into nothing more than a guinea pig when you are so clearly beyond my own intelligence."_

"_So you believe that humans should not know their own future?"_

"_I believe that what makes us human is the desire to discover that unknown future for ourselves," Helen replied. "Without our curiosity, we are nothing."_

_Rex grinned. "I would like to stay."_

_Helen blinked in surprise. "I'm sorry?"_

"_You are wise, Helen Magnus. I would like to apply my power to help you and your friends in your work."_

"_But I just said—"_

"_With your help, I will learn to dampen my psychic power down to a simple ability to predict immediate danger. This would be helpful in combat, no?"_

_Helen nodded. "It would be very helpful."_

"_So, what do you say? Will you give me sanctuary and help me focus my powers to help even more as I have helped you?"_

_Helen returned the child/parasite's smile warmly. "I would be honored."_

_Rex nodded and reached her hand toward the candle. "Then I shall leave your mind."_

_All at once, Helen felt a pang in her heart. She'd grown attached to the wise parasite. She could see that Rex had sensed her surge of emotion because the little girl smiled, her hand still a few inches from the flame. _

"_Do not worry, Helen," Rex said. "I will return to my containment unit until you are ready to begin experiments. When you are ready and only when you are ready, I shall gladly return to your mind, my friend."_

_Helen smiled. "I'd like that. Friend."_

_Rex returned the smile and focused again on the single candle flame, moving to snuff it out. But she hesitated again and frowned. Helen felt fear start to rise up, but Rex's mischievous smile quickly banished it._

"_I would like to leave you with a parting gift. Do not worry, this is the last time I shall intentionally show you your future. I just wish to make you happy, Helen. For you have given me a home—something I have never known."_

_Then the child snuffed out the candle. The suffocating darkness only lasted for one breath. Inhale, exhale. Then light faded back and Helen recognized the interior of her barely-used Italian villa. Frowning, she peered around, confused and more than a little nervous. All that Rex had ever shown her had ended in blood and tears. Could it really find a happy future memory?_

_Hearing laughing voices from down the hall, Helen crept toward the library. Gently, she pushed the door open and this was the scene that greeted her._

_She saw herself, reclining on a settee. She was dressed in a loose dress, was barefoot, and had a glass of wine and a book within close proximity. Her hair was free of pins and, surprisingly, she looked truly relaxed. Helen couldn't remember the last time she'd had absolutely no worries._

_In the center of the cozy library was a sight that nearly made the observing Helen collapse in surprise and glee. _

_Nikola was holding a tiny newborn in the crook of one arm. He stared at the child in wonderment and awe, as if he'd finally achieved his greatest discovery. At his feet, a little girl clung to his pant leg, her head barely reaching his knee. She held on for dear life, as if she would fall over without her grip. Nikola murmured over the newborn in soft Serbian. His tone was so gentle that Helen couldn't catch enough of the words to translate it. She did, however, note the baby's name._

_Gregory._

_The name of her father. Tears welled and Helen put her fingers to her lips as she continued to view the snippet of her own future. And as she watched—unnoticed by the memory itself—a white pigeon flew in from the balcony. The bird landed on the floor a few feet from Nikola and pecked at the ground, looking for food. The little girl made a curious gurgling noise and bravely released Nikola's leg in order to stagger toward the bird. _

_Her father kept his eyes on her, but continued to whisper over the baby boy in his arms. He didn't even interfere when the little girl swayed on her feet, clearly not having mastered the secrets of balance yet. She plopped onto her bum, but was so focused on the pigeon that she didn't even yelp._

_The snow-white bird cocked its head as the girl held out her hand toward it._

"_Careful, Antonija."_

_Helen jerked slightly at the sound of her own voice and glanced at the future version of herself. _

"_Shh, Helen," Nikola whispered even as his gaze never left his curious daughter. He smiled that truly happy smile that was so rarely seen, his eyes focused. "Let her discover."_

_The pigeon pecked lightly at the extended pudgy fingers as if testing to see if they were food. Antonija frowned slightly at the stinging pokes, but refused to retreat._

"_Nikola," the future Helen sat up on the couch, brow creased in a mother's worry._

_But, being himself, Nikola ignored her, still with eyes glued to the toddler. "It's alright, Annie," he said, softly. "He's just as nervous as you are. This is his way of introducing himself."_

_Antonija nodded solemnly and then focused on the bird. With an expression so serious it was comical, she touched her tiny forefinger to her chest. _

"_I'm Annie. Wha's yo'r name?"_

_Nikola grinned, thoroughly pleased. And though the bird didn't speak, it cooed happily and cleared the ground in one hop, landing atop the little girl's hand with a ruffle of feathers. Antonija squealed in delight._

"_Papa! Papa!"_

_Nikola chuckled. "Yes, I see it, moj princeza. I believe you've made a lifelong friend."_

_The little girl giggled delightedly and Nikola looked up at the future Helen with a cocky smirk as if to say, 'See? I was right, as usual.'_

_Helen watched her future self shake her head with a slight laugh before standing and walking over. "You are impossible."_

_Nikola followed her progress with his eyes as she crossed the room to carefully take their baby boy from his arm. "And that's why you adore me. Go ahead. Try to deny it."_

_Future Helen smiled. "I won't. Never again."_

_Then she kissed him gently. And while their mouths softly explored one another as if for the first time, their little Annie tried to coo like the pigeon and baby Gregory yawned widely._

_A family._

Helen opened her eyes with a soft gasp. She was lying on her back, staring at the ceiling of the infirmary. She frowned. That made no sense. She'd finally passed out with her head over Nikola's heart. How had she…?

She sat bolt upright. She was lying in the gurney next to Nikola's but he was not in it. Panicked, Helen looked around the empty infirmary. There was no one. Expertly controlling her breathing, Helen swung her legs out of bed and crossed the room efficiently. She checked the labs and the kitchen before finally entering her office.

She smiled in relief at spotting all of them there.

"Doc!" Henry cried, upon spotting her first.

With that, everyone immediately leaped up and raced over. Except Nikola, who remained seated, long fingers steepled in perfect balance in front of his face. But he was smiling that tiny, sultry smirk of his.

"Are you okay?" Will asked immediately as they crowded around.

"I'm fine. Really." Helen smiled, truly alright for the first time in a long time.

"It's just, you were out for like twelve hours," Kate insisted. "We were worried you weren't going to wake up."

"Not _too_ worried it seems." Helen shot the still-seated Nikola a pointed look.

"I knew you were too stubborn to leave us like that," the Serbian genius replied to her challenge. "But the children wouldn't listen to me."

Bigfoot huffed in annoyance.

"Okay," Nikola amended. "The children and the family dog."

Bigfoot growled this time. Helen put a hand on his shoulder, but was surprised to find that that growl had been a friendly one and the butler needed no restraining or calming. In fact, he was…smiling?

Lazily, Nikola stood up and sauntered over to them. The others moved aside, allowing Helen to see her beloved genius fully. As if reading her mind, Nikola spread his arms wide before dropping them with a smirk.

"Satisfied? I'm alive and well once again."

"Back to your old self?"

He grinned and his eyes briefly flashed black. "Of course."

Helen's pang of regret at his dehumanization immediately melted away in the light of his absolute joy. No more soul-crushing depression, no more pouting. He had the spark back. Maybe he really was meant to be this way. Regardless, Helen would love him no matter what he looked like or what dastardly things he did. She realized now that she always had.

"Sorry to interrupt, doc," Henry butted in regretfully, "but what do you want to do about Rex?"

"Yeah, Henry filled us in on your little friend," Will put in. "That's _bizarre_."

"I stopped using that word long ago, Will," Helen said with a smile. She turned to Henry. "You might want to check that empty containment unit you found. And Will, not to worry, I don't think I'll be having anymore nightmares."

Frowning, Henry nodded and quickly darted out of the room.

"Hey, wait up, Scruffy!" Kate called, hurrying after the werewolf.

He turned at the door and grinned at her, waiting. She caught up and they walked out together, teasing and bantering. Helen watched them go with noticeable shock and confusion.

"What in God's name happened while I was out?"

"Well, _apparently_," Nikola said, "the werewolf and the mercenary finally realized how much another particular couple reminded them of themselves. They've seeing the light."

For a moment, Will and Bigfoot stood in awkward silence as Helen and Nikola eyed one another. Then Will cleared his throat loudly.

"I have some paperwork to catch up on." Exeunt psychologist protégé.

Bigfoot just grunted and cuffed Nikola upside the back of his head. The Serbian genius's shock was absolute as he stared, one hand to his offended skull, the other hand with claws half-extended. The Big Guy just laughed in his stuttered way and left after the others.

Helen grinned. "Welcome to the family."

"Thank you, I suppose," Nikola muttered, rubbing his head.

The door shut behind Bigfoot and for a moment the room was silent. Then Nikola smiled. "No more nightmares?"

"None so far, but I believe my little friend is gone for now."

With a heavy sigh, Nikola turned back toward the couch.

Helen gave him a shrewd look as she followed tentatively. "What is it?"

Nikola shrugged innocently. "You don't need me anymore. Temporary solution and all. I might as well just go…"

Slowly, Helen smiled. Then, before he could even look up, she closed the distance between them, dug her hands into his deliciously messy hair, and jammed her lips against his in a starved kiss. She was surprised, but not a little excited at how quickly he responded. His arms, once again superhumanly strong, hugged her flat against him as those smirking lips drew whimpers of pleasure from her throat. Only when he'd succeeded in making her knees tremble did he slip his mouth down to her neck, murmuring against her skin in his exotic native tongue.

"_Ti si moj andeo, ti si moj kraljica, ti si moj život_."

_You are my angel, you are my queen, you are my life. _

Helen groaned and whispered back, "_Volim te_."

_I love you_.

Nikola pulled back to look at her with wide steel eyes. She fought not to smile at the helpless look she loved so much and instead took the opportunity to back him up a half a step. His legs hit the couch they'd shared wine on and, off balance, he fell back onto it. Smiling deviously, Helen straddled over top of him. Innocently, she twisted the buttons on her jacket out of their fastenings, one by one. Slowly.

"Helen…"

He said her name in the low whisper that made her heart sing and her mind drop into lovely lustful thoughts.

"_Želim te_," she said breathily.

_I want you._

That devilish smirk stretched at his mouth. "It's the middle of the day, Helen," he murmured.

She pulled off her jacket and let it fall to the carpet as she leaned over him to brush her lips against his ear.

"I don't care…" she whispered seductively.

She felt him shiver underneath her and she licked the curve of his ear lightly before pulling away to begin the slow torturous process of unbuttoning her shirt. Nikola licked his lips and Helen felt the tingling in her stomach grow a bit stronger at the unhidden desire shining from his eyes. Finally, she peeled her shirt off and traced her forefinger from Nikola's lips, down his neck to the first button on his shirt. He reached up to help, but she slapped his hand away.

"Relax," she murmured, massaging his chest briefly as she slipped the buttons free. "I'll take care of you."

He groaned as she continued to undress him. "_Poljubi me_," he murmured.

Obeying with a smile, Helen dipped her head to kiss him. Smearing her lips down his neck, she licked and kissed her way all down his chest and taut stomach, relishing the miniscule groans he allowed to escape his control

"You are a very naughty girl, Mrs. _Tesla_," he murmured.

Helen froze and sat up sharply. "What did you just…?"

Grinning like a little boy, Tesla held up a crumpled piece of paper between two elegant fingers. Helen snatched it and unfolded it.

_Mrs. Helen Tesla._

The schoolgirl doodle she'd thought was safely away in her desk stared back at her, innocently. She could feel her face burning as she read the words over and over, hoping to see something different each time. But there it was and he'd seen it! Blushing crimson, Helen crumpled it up and tossed it away. Nikola was still grinning. He rested his hands on her knees and pushed them up her thighs, setting fires all over her body.

"Personally, I think it sounds _fantastic_," he teased.

Without hesitation, Helen hauled off and smacked him right across his smirking mouth. When he glared back at her, it was with a reddening patch on his pale, smooth cheek. He growled and opened his mouth to speak, but Helen's warning finger in his face silenced him.

"_That_ was for going into my personal things," she scolded.

Slowly, he grinned. "I didn't think you'd like it rough, Helen, but I'm willing to adapt."

He could recover from anything this man. Helen's anger and embarrassment faded and she couldn't help but smile. She leaned closer to press a brief but wet kiss on his lips. Pulling back, she gave him her no-nonsense look.

"If anything, I would keep my name as Helen Magnus-Tesla."

Nikola just stared at her in open surprise that she was speaking so casually about marriage.

"By the way," she said, casually, as she unbuckled his belt. "What does Antonija mean in Serbian?"

Nikola frowned. "Invaluable. Why?"

Helen smiled. How appropriate. "No reason."

With a mischievous light in her eyes, Helen dipped to taste his mouth again. She realized with a smile that she had become addicted to it. Without pause, his hands resumed their burning trail up her thighs and over her waist and back, brushing her curves with an almost gentlemanly grace.

Helen smiled like a wanton teenager as she finally tugged his pants from his narrow hips. _Let's just see if I can find the animal underneath the gentleman. After all these years…there's bound to be some unresolved tension to tap into._

~fin~


End file.
